Dead or Alive 6 has sparked discussion among fans about the level of fanservice included in the game, and rumors have been running rampant due to a recent interview on GNN with Director and Producer Yohei Shimbori.
The content of the interview and the following translations by western websites led many to believe that the costume break feature was toned down to appeal to the female audience and that there would be differences in content among platforms.
Twinfinite talked with Shimbori-san himself during a press event in London, and we took the chance to clear the air from the rumors, asking him directly about the content of the interview. The developer clarified the issues, explaining that his intent was either misquoted or mistranslated.
First of all, we inquired about whether there was any truth in the rumored differences between different platforms.
“I think you’re referring to character design. We put a lot of effort from the beginning to create content that is enjoyable but also publishable on all platforms, so content-wise there will be no differences between the platforms.”
Asked more specifically whether the costumes and the body physics are going to be identical on all platforms, Shimbori-san confirmed that this is all the case. The only difference is in the exclusive platform-specific costumes that have already been announced, but the presentation, outfits and the physics engine will all be the same.
“Please tell everyone that there was a misunderstanding or a mistranslation. I was misquoted on this one.”
Afterward, we asked the developer to clarify the quote on the costume break feature and on whether it was really altered to appeal to a specific audience. Not only he denied that, but he also took the chance to completely debunk the rumors about censorship specific to the PS4 version.
“I never said that. The first thing I want to clarify is that nothing has been done specifically for female players. As a matter of fact, the female players I know would rather use sexy female characters in the game. The allegation that changes were made in consideration of the female audience is completely untrue.”
“There was also some mentioning of censorship from Sony, but I’d like to stress out again that there is no difference in content among all platform. Any rumors about censorship for Sony’s [platform] are not true. You know the franchise and you know me, so you probably knew that this was untrue, but people on social media read it and believed it, so it would be great if you could correct this.”
Lastly, Shimbori-san did admit that the team intentionally implemented the costume break feature with minimum settings for launch, but this has simply been done to make sure that stores won’t refuse to carry the game. That being said,the possibility that things will be changed after release does exist.
“That being said, it is a fact that costume damage has been reduced. If we had extensive damage to the costumes to the point that characters are almost nude, it would become really hard to sell the game in certain territories. [Dead or Alive] Xtreme 3 is a good example. We weren’t able to sell it in Europe and in America.”
[…] “Some stores will actually refuse to sell the game, and this is really a big issue sales-wise. This is why we started small, but there are options to adjust it in the future. For now, we’re sticking to the minimum to be able to safely sell the game.”
Asked specifically whether this means that the team might be able to push the costume break feature to more prominent levels after the game’s release, Shimbori-san confirmed that this is indeed the case.
Dead or Alive 6 has recently been slightly delayed and is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC on March 1.
If you want to read more about the game, you can check out my hands-on preview.
