Alongside multiple balance tweaks and changes, one thing that many players noticed in the latest beta builds of Street Fighter V were the changes to certain risque cinematics, most notably R. Mika’s cheeky butt slap during her Critical Art activation.

Since then, fans have speculated as to why these changes were made, with theories ranging from outside pressure to their desire to maintain a Teen rating with the ESRB.

In a recent interview with Brazilian site UOL Jogos (which was subsequently translated by NeoGAF’s Moraizen), executive producer Yoshinori Ono assures that their decision came solely within the development team.

“We didn’t make any change because of external influences. Those changes came up internally,” Ono explains. “We decided to remove [R. Mika’s butt slap] because we want the biggest possible number of people to play, and we don’t want to have something in the game that might make someone uncomfortable.”

He goes on to say that while they can’t possibly remove everything that may be offensive to everyone, their goal is to try to reduce it as much as possible.

Source: UOL Jogos via NeoGAF