It seems like Team Ninja’s Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore is going to be re-released on the Playstation 3, via the PS2 Classics program.

The news comes via an ESRB listing, which curiously mentions Sony Computer Entertainment America as the publisher. To be clear – this is the case with all PS2 Classics, as Sony handles the porting of the game to the Playstation Network.

For those who didn’t play the game or never followed its creation, you should take a few minutes to get some gaming history. The development of Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore on Playstation 2 was quite a troubled mess.

The game’s schedule pushed creator and mastermind Tomonobu Itagaki to the brink of his sanity, it seems. The developers at Team Ninja had less than three months to port the game from the Sega Dreamcast to the Playstation 2, so the game could launch with the console in Japan.

To make matters worse, the game was sent to production by his boss, prior to it even being finished. He was asked for a copy of the game to playtest, but instead it was sent to the production factory the same day, behind Itagaki’s back. While some of his staff were relieved, but some of them, including himself, were very depressed by the action.

This led to Itagaki-san getting depressed that an unfinished version of his game was shipped, so he ended up staying home and started binge drinking. He seriously considered quitting the games industry from this entire ordeal, as he remained home for three or four months.

However, watching Michael Bay’s Armageddon on repeat with his daughter, coupled with the movie’s Aerosmith soundtrack, inspired him to work again. His daughter got tired of watching a movie where the dad dies, and she didn’t want to see it anymore. Itagaki-san decided to fight for his friends and family, and went back to work. He attributes Aerosmith and Armageddon to saving his life, and his friends and family.

Itagaki-san later used Aerosmith tracks in later Dead or Alive games, until he left Team Ninja in 2008. While there’s no confirmation as of yet regarding Dead or Alive 2: Hardcore on the PS3, Itagaki-san is working on finishing up Devil’s Third, his latest from his new studio Valhalla Games, on the Wii U.