Their explanation is that they want the female characters to be taken seriously as warriors.
The main character of the game is Kasumi, She is the sister of Ryo Hayabusa from Ninja Gaiden series. She is a ninja warrior assasin who is very sexy.
They decided to redesign her.

I want to cry of disappointment because it is so weird to see Kasumi showing less skin.
They want to appeal to the feminist so she doesnt fight on a revealing Ninja outfit anymore, she now fights on a full body suit. This game received a lot of complaints from women's rights groups because the women are too sexy. There is nothing wrong about being sexy and these are not real women. They are videogame characters and real women who dresses sexy exists. Also Women's rights group should fight for the rights of real women like the girls who cant go to school in the middle east or women who don't get equal pay instead of fictional superpowered fictional Ninjas and Kung fu masters.
This game's female characters are more popular but the latest trailer emphasized the male characters more. They sexualized the male characters by making them shirtless but the women are now fully covered.
So female players can have their eyecandy but the male players wont because the women will have more fabric now.
I won't be shocked if years from now the next sequel will have female characters looking like this:












