It’s time to move on from Dead or Alive 5
Previously, Team Ninja, the team behind Tecmo’s Dead or Alive title had announced to watch the NEC18 for some special announcement. And here everyone was expecting them to finally announce that Dead or Alive 6 was in the making. Or at the least that Team Ninja was ready to start on it. So, I’m sure that most people were curious to see what the deal was and checked out the live stream. Except, what we got was the complete opposite of what we expected.
Instead of some glorious announcement, Tecmo instead took the time to state that Dead or Alive 5 was done. No more content, no more updates, nothing. For all purposes, today means that the game is finished. They thanked Big E, who organizes the Northeast Championship tournaments (NEC) and said their goodbyes. Now, for what this means for the tournament scene, that’s to be determined. Being honest, while DOA5 still had several tournaments where it was played, the support has been slowly going away. The bigger events, such as EVO 2017, didn’t even feature the game of the main tournaments. With this final announcement, we very well could be seeing the last time that Dead or Alive 5 is featured in.
With Dead or Alive 5 Plus (PS Vita) Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate (PS3/X360), Dead or Alive 5 Last Round (PS4/X1/PC), Dead or Alive Ultimate Arcade and Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate Core Fighters, I think it’s finally time for the development team to move on. I’m sure this is exactly what they’re feeling as well.
However, this could be a positive thing as well. While it wasn’t directly stated, this could mean that Team Ninja is finally getting to work on Dead or Alive 6. This announcement of Dead or Alive 5 being finished isn’t the first time we’ve heard of this. During the 2017 Toyko Game Show, Yosuke Hayashi had confirmed that all DLC for DOA5 would be ending this year. So this announcement was just that, the final confirmation. So who knows. Maybe in 2-3 years, we’ll finally get that Dead or Alive 6 announcement.
Hey Tecmo and Team Ninja, if I could make a request, it would be this. Team up with SEGA so they can get off their asses and use the Virtua Fighter license again. Hell, just make a DOA vs Virtua Fighter game. You already had several characters from VF that made the crossover (Jacky and Sarah). So why not go all out. Besides, it’s not like Bandai Namco hasn’t done this with characters from Street Fighter, King of Fighters/Fatal Fury and even Final Fantasy, being featured in Tekken.
But for you all you Dead or Alive fans, the series isn’t finished. I know this was miscommunicated earlier by many of the tweets I say. The series is still alive, even if it will be dormant for a while.
You can see the entirety of the announcement below.
