Here comes yet another pre-E3 reveal, this time from Team Ninja. The Japanese games developer just revealed a sequel in their long-standing fighting game series. Dead or Alive 6 is set to come early 2019 to PC, PS4 and Xbox One. Check out the reveal trailer!
IGN reported exclusively on the announcement of the new DoA game, in a talk with game director Yohei Shimbori. Shimbori used the chance to assure fans that the team has no intention to change the core gameplay which fans have come to appreciate:
“It can feel disappointing if a game you used to enjoy no longer feels familiar, so we didn’t want to change the core mechanics”
This doesn’t mean however that we will get just a re-skinned DoA 5. The developers have added a new Special button which the director described as a “Rescue button for beginners” for easy and powerful “Fatal Rush” combos and explained it further:
“In Japan, there is a game for kids where you make two sumo wrestlers out of folded paper or cardboard, place them on a platform, and two players tap the platform repeatedly with only one finger until one of the sumo figures collapses in defeat. Today, games developed for smartphone devices are often played with similar simplicity. That made me want to create a fighting game playable with only one finger, and this idea became the foundation of the new Special button.”
Dead or Alive 6 is also going to feature a “Break Gauge” which is a super meter. A first in the series. So, it looks like Team Ninja is hard at work to both enable newcomers an easier start to their fighting game but also keep what made Dead or Alive the successful fighting game it has become, in gameplay and visuals.
DoA games have steadily impressed with their interactive fighting stages and highly detailed character models. This also extended into a very “expressive” and life-like representation of the female cast. Features like exaggerated breast physics, skin that looks real and a myriad of scantily-clad costumes have also become synonymous with the series. But this might change according to the interview:
“We wanted to make a more cool and mature Dead or Alive this time, and to that end we made a conscious decision to make the characters less sexualized.
The female characters are still attractive, as are the men, but first and foremost they are fighters”
This is an industry-wide trend we have been seeing for some while now. Likely a sign of a maturing medium and the desire to make games welcoming to all kinds of people. It remains to be seen how hardcore fans react to these changes though.
Besides this in-depth interview and a reveal trailer, publisher KOEI Tecmo teased June 11th to reveal more info on Dead or Alive 6. Stay tuned to learn more then!
