When the fighting game genre had a massive revitalisation in the PS3 era, it was due in massive part to the success of Street Fighter IV. Since then, that series and a few other iconic Japanese fighting game series have continued to thrive well into the modern era, so much so that we’re now seeing the returns of Fatal Fury and Virtua Fighter. Dead Or Alive has ended up somewhere in the middle, though. There hasn’t been a new entry in the franchise since Dead Or Alive 6 in 2019, and that game wasn’t received too well. Now feels like the perfect time for a new entry in the series to help revitalise things. Well, we are getting a new game, but it’s actually an old game.
Dead Or Alive 6 Last Round, as a new 2026 PS5, Xbox Series and PC release, is practically identical to what it was as a 2019 release. The same roster of characters duke it out in this counter-heavy 3D fighter, with the same variety of modes available to play with them in.
In a situation where the game was beloved and flawless, re-releasing it as-is and following the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality would be perfect. Dead Or Alive 6 was, in fact, a bit broken though. Can Last Round fix it?
Fans have clamoured for the game to receive modern features like crossplay or rollback netcode, and neither has come to fruition. Zero balance changes have been introduced to the game, giving dedicated fans very little incentive to revisit the title. Even an annoying 7 frame-input lag that has been a noted nuisance to pro players for years has seen no tweaking whatsoever.
The biggest elephant in the room regarding this Dead Or Alive 6 Last Round re-release, though, is its approach to DLC. The original release received a downright exhaustive and incredibly expensive amount of costume DLC over the years, as well as a handful of character crossover DLC. Typically, a years-later port like this would bundle that DLC in as an appealing value.
Dead Or Alive 6 Last Round does include almost all of the DLC characters that were added to the roster, with the notable exception of the two crossover characters, Mai and Killua, which will need to be repurchased, likely for licensing purposes. None of the DLC costumes are included, though if you already owned a costume for the (now de-listed) original version, your costumes can be carried over.
Truly the only sign of intent for Dead Or Alive 6 Last Round’s future is the tease of a new DLC character, Minato, an original fighter that will be arriving sometime this summer, and the vague promise of more characters (and costume DLC) in future. But when Dead Or Alive 5’s Ultimate and Last Round releases added characters, modes and arenas into the main purchase, this is coming up very short.
Oh wait, there is a photo mode now.
This re-release of Dead Or Alive 6 Last Round has left me scratching my head. It offers no incentives to purchase beyond the fact that, if you want to own this game at all, it is the only version that exists now that they’ve delisted the original one. Perhaps, in time, Koei Tecmo will use this as a modernized platform to introduce more compelling new features and waves of new content to the game, but it’s currently a pretty lacklustre and unexciting proposition.
