Dead or Alive 5

Team NINJA was set to bring some nice updates to their latest chapter of the Dead or Alive 5 series, but a slight issue with the patch has caused the update to be temporarily delayed.

A few days ago, Tecmo Koei officially announced the release of Dead or Alive 5 Version 1.03. Hitting for PS3 on Tuesday, and scheduled for Xbox 360 on January 29th, the update brings a new stage (Zack Island), character balancing, new moves, updates to the game’s online, better management of replays, and more.

Unfortunately, Team NINJA has now announced that “an issue with stagger escapes (a.k.a. slow escapes) during Critical” was discovered in the update after release via PSN. Due to this issue, the Xbox 360 update will no longer be hitting as scheduled; an updated update is now planned for “sometime in February”.

Due to this delay, the DLC that was set to come out at the same time—the “Hotties Swimwear” packs—have now also been pushed back until the v1.03 patch can be properly fixed.

The basics for what’s coming in DOA5 v1.03 are as follows:

• New stage: Zack Island
• Combat balance adjustments and new fighting moves
• Online gameplay adjustments and improvements
• Updated content and movie upload functions
• General updates based on player feedback

For a full and detailed list on how 1.03 will affect specific characters, hit the link below.

As for the DLC, the three new swimwear packs will each run $4.99 on PSN or 400 MS Points on Xbox Live. All three packs can be purchased together for $12.99 / 1040 MS Points. Character breakdowns for the packs are as follows:

• Pack 1: Kasumi, Kokoro, Helena, and Sarah
• Pack 2: Hitomi, Leifang, Mila, and Pai
• Pack 3: Ayane, Christie, Tina, and Lisa

Source: Team NINJA - DOA5 v1.03 full character change notes