Free Step Dodge

EVO 2018 is a few days away, and it seems that Team Ninja prepared a brand new trailer for Dead or Alive 6, featuring the return of Rig from Dead or Alive 5, and the latest newcomer to the DOA roster, Diego.


Nicknamed the "Uncrowned Street Hero", Diego has more of a Brawler fighting style, specializing in headbutts and curb-stomping his opponents. His appearance has a similar vibe to the likes of Miguel from the Tekken series.

Rig needs no introduction. Known as the "Fighter Without a Past", Rig retained his stances and his pressure game that we all know and love, along with a few new moves as well. If you remember in DOA5, Rig was responsible for restarting Project Epsilon, as well as serving for M.I.S.T. under Victor Donovan.

In addition to the announcement, IGN provided a gameplay video of Rig and Diego, along with the rest of the cast. It...

This weekend is going to be crazy in Las Vegas at EVO 2018 and there are a lot of things going on with both DOA5 and DOA6, so see this post as your guide to the whole event that will be consistently updated. Top 8 DOA5 will be streamed on EVO's Official Event Channel so this is definitely one of the communities biggest opportunities to perform! After The Showdown has concluded there will be a Results Post with the possibility of more announcements from Team NINJA.

If you are curious to learn more about the big players in the Dead or Alive community this...

August 3rd-4th will be historical days for the Dead or Alive community as we officially see the franchise return to EVO, but Team NINJA is also going to launch the first DOA6 tournament (which I speculated correctly in my last post) that will likely be considered mini because of the small character list announced so far. You can register for this event at Team NINJA's booth. If you are going to be home for the excitement you can watch this blockbuster premier at Team NINJA's Dead or Alive Twitch Channel.

No one predicted all of this madness, but here we are over a month into DOA6's startup and the...

Excitement for the offline scene continues as Team NINJA has added two brand new events to their official Dead or Alive 6 website. The first being a DOA6 "Mini Tournament" which will run on the latest build according to the Japanese site. The second event is an exhibition match, and DOATEC... I mean Team NINJA, will invite the top fighters in the world to compete, a detail not elaborated in the American version of the site.

It's easy to speculate that the DOA6 mini tournament will be at EVO after the Last Round event, but more details will be released soon. The main focus leading to EVO is to fill registration spots and attract people to the event. Currently there are more than 120 spots filled, and if you want...

Team NINJA is now opening registration for their EVO partnered event that will not only close out DOA5's official long-lasting tournament presence, but will introduce the community and gamers across the world to the spectacle that is Dead or Alive 6. After months of dry news and a shorter battle royal, players started getting burnt out on Last Round, but Team NINJA has once again rejuvenated the community and FGC with free entry to the event; plus exciting and new possibilities. Remember the 256 player cap before procrastinating, will you be there?


There are some important notices from the owner of FSD, @Mr. Wah that you should consider for the...

Despite being announced only a few weeks ago, Team NINJA has already managed to secure several awards at E3 2018. The press has taken interest in the developer focusing more on Dead or Alive 6 being an e-sport title as evident by the team partnering up with EVO this year for a big side-tournament event.Team NINJA is also bringing in other gamers like streamer Maximilian, who so far, is enjoying DOA6 greatly.

It's always a good thing when a game is able to get positive attention before its release date. Despite the DOA6 build being around 8% complete, it was still enough to warrant awards from several gaming publications including: IGN, Dual Shockers, Hardcore Gamer, Game Fanatics and more! This doesn't even include the positive vibes from Team NINJA's Nioh 2; it's looking like an exciting year for the community...

Team NINJA made a surprise appearance at E3 to reveal to the world that DOA6 is here, and it will be playable for the first time to the public at EVO 18. Though it looks like a few lucky people, largely from the press, have been able to play it before that event. Today a few more basic things have been confirmed to the game.

Dead or Alive 6 Game Modes:

Story - Even with the mixed reviews from the community and critics, story will be returning to hopefully clarify a few things between the ninjas and the newer characters added to DOA5: Ultimate and Last Round. Many fans do enjoy DOA's story a great deal and hopefully those awesome cinematics from DOA3 and 4 come back this time around.

Offline Modes - These modes will bring back the traditional difficulty levels found in DOA5.

• Versus
• Arcade
• Time Attack
• Survival
• Team Battle...

Team NINJA officially announced their EVO presence to the world at the Playstation Showcase, which is broken down well by @Rojikku along with some content pertaining to Jann Lee and environmental gameplay included in this news post. We also see the new character select screen for the few characters shown, but do not know if it is the final design. Thanks to @Tyaren for the screen caps.

Dead or Alive 6 is shaping up to be quite an awesome game... different from DOA5, but one can admire that they are looking for ways to freshen up DOA's mechanics for us. It's impressive that they have the ambition to give us both Dead or Alive 6 and a sequel to their...

This Wednesday Dead or Alive 6 will have a fifteen minute time-slot at the Playstation Showcase. It probably wouldn't be wise to expect a new character, but a demonstration similar to IGN's a few days ago. Anything is possible though, and maybe the developers will address a few of our concerns with the short time they have.
Remember you will also have access to Dead or Alive 6 at EVO! So make sure you stay tuned in for more information leading to that event. Sony's E3 press conference also announced Team NINJA's sequel to Nioh. More information should be available Wednesday for that game as well!

Team NINJA has announced with the update of their DOA6 official website that the EVO DOA Showdown will be your first chance at playing Dead or Alive 6! This isn't just big news for DOA players, but for the entire FGC. This special DOA event takes place August 3-4th in Las Vegas at the biggest stage of them all!

The DOA5: Last Round Side-Tournament will happen on the 4th at the Koei-Tecmo booth. This will likely be the last chance you have to play DOA5 at an official event from Team NINJA. Event registration is required for this showdown (and will be detailed soon) but will also require your...

Try to keep an open mind as the footage is an early build of Dead or Alive 6, and we are slowly piecing the mechanics together the best we can with the information we have available to us. DOA6 will be available for us to play at EVO this year so observation is clearly welcomed by Team NINJA.

At 3:30 PM Pacific Time a stream from IGN is expected to help us make some sense of today's Famitsu interview with Shimbori that revealed several new mechanics to the DOA formula. Most developers copy and paste the predecessor, but the sixth installment of our game will have plenty of new mechanics, coupled with the elements we loved most from DOA5LR. Let's take a quick peep at what's...

A lot of us expected to wait additional years for Dead or Alive 6, but today a surprise trailer dropped that is not just some stupid logo tease, but shows actual gameplay! Team NINJA continues to bring out the smoothest graphics and best animation in the world! With DOA5 ending its official lifespan at a partnered EVO event, this could be one of the best years of all time for our community.

Team NINJA's trailer starts off with swords, and serious production quality to let us know how good this is going to be and then the trailer goes into RAMPAGE mode with Hayabusa's "Fatal Rush" Combo activated with the new Special button (H+P+K). You see in this one minute trailer that they are not going to cheap out on the animation. Every punch thrown looks likes it's connecting and you see far less clipping than any Team NINJA game yet. This game is designed to be a...

Team NINJA recently announced that they would be hosting a special side tournament showdown for Dead or Alive 5: Last Round at EVO 2018 in Las Vegas. While all of the details have yet to be confirmed for the event, the community has a chance to make some fuss for the franchise we love. DOA has had a rough time making it at EVO, but the community and game have grown over the years and DOA truly deserves to be seen on the biggest stage of them all.

This tournament could be seen as a step to that. Team NINJA is putting this together, and they have said that players in attendance will have access to exclusive merchandise that will only be available at the EVO side tournament. How you gain access to the merch via a store, give-aways or by placing high in the tournament has been left unknown, but is a nice incentive to someone that enjoys collecting DOA goods, and Team NINJA continues to put on a great show and effort...

If there's one major tournament that many have hoped that Dead Or Alive 5 would have had a presence in, it's none other than Evo. Now, Dead Or Alive 5: Last Round is finally making it to the big game.

DOA series producer Yosuke Hayashi and director Yohei Shimbori have posted the ff. message announcing the game's return to the biggest stage of them all.

To the DOA fans and fighting game fans, thanks to you all we are proudly announcing that DEAD OR ALIVE 5 Last Round will take part in the world’s largest fighting game festival Evo.

5 years have passed since the DOA5 series started and it’s been played by more than 10 million gamers. Meanwhile, the DOA community has expanded to become larger than ever before.

To proceed to the next stage, we announced the...

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Summer Jam was one of the kick-starters of DOA5's offline tournament scene, and this year the DOA community plans to put their skills to the test again in 2018 while also proving to Team NINJA that we are ready and passionate for Dead or Alive 6. Big E Gaming has been so good to our community, giving us the spotlight and hosting us every chance possible; always showing a lot of love. We really do have a lot to be thankful for, and Summer Jam 18 should be considered a platform for us to express our gratitude to those that have supported the scene and Dead or Alive by putting on a show that only this game can offer in the FGC.

Final Round might not roll in our highest numbers but the intense quality matches are what help DOA5 stand out; even in a more intimate environment we see an absolute savage Crazy Steady come back to take FR! He spends the opening rounds of his fights thinking of what to do with his opponents; whether it be a seasoned vet or a newcomer and finishes them off in ways that only he can. Even professional fighter Hoodless fell to the might of the West Coast King!


If you need a quick reference, take a look at the standings via Smash.GG. Thanks to Kombat Network, we were able to enjoy a high quality stream of our game, and now replays have been released for the event. Kombat Network makes the navigation of...

Congratulations to Jager for taking Winter Brawl 12! Despite some cancellations and no pool stream, we managed to get over 1,000 viewers on FunkyP during Top 8 with a great showing from some of the finest fighters out there.

Note pertaining to Saturday Pools: Winter Brawl is upon us, and while we do definitely make a presence...

A New Year is here, but what hasn't changed is our annual community appearance at Winter Brawl in Essington made possible by Big E Gaming with plenty of perks in store for DOA5 fighters. The tournament starts February 23rd, so now would be the perfect time to formulate your plans. Free Step Dodge will keep you posted on all the event news: including results, player pools and more.

Winter Brawl 7 took place in 2013, and it marked the community's first appearance with Dead or Alive 5 vanilla. Sweet Revenge not only defeated the unstoppable XcaliburBladeZ with Sarah, but broke a common misconception in the fighting game community: guest characters ARE awesome, and they can be viable. Since then we have seen other big wins from the Virtua Fighter characters, such as JC Akira's legendary performance at NEC 16.


Hearing Tom Lee's address to the community after NEC 18...

If you want a new way to train for offline events with the chance to win prizes and further connect with the community, maybe you should look to network with ESL. Master has been hyping these events by streaming them and advertising them via social media so you know there is some legitimacy as these types of online events also provide us with something to do with Last Round as we wait for the next major: Winter Brawl. Ready fighters?

A year ago at the Battle Royal 2016 finals Team NINJA Creative Director Tom Lee said, "Next year's Battle Royal event will be an event you don't want to miss." As the year went on, members in the community couldn't help but wonder due to the intonation of Tom's speech if something big was planned or if it was just generic hype for a year long event filled with amazing competitive matches.

The journey to the Battle Royal 2017 finals was eventful, filled with upsets from South Killy defeating XCalibur BladeZ at Final Round, previous Battle Royal 2015 winner JC Akira taking the EVO Japan Pre-tournament, XCalibur BladeZ getting his run-back on Battle Royal 2016 winner Rikuto at Summer Jam 11, Hoodless finally taking the win after his die-hard training at The Fall Classic, and Snow defeating previous European champion Gehaktbal at the Republic of fighters.

The world's eyes were on Team NINJA as we rolled into NEC18 for the Battle Royal 2017 World Finals event. A day before the event...

As if pools were not crazy enough we are doing all of Top 8 with FT3 format. So are you ready for the biggest, grandest show at NEC 18?

Kwiggle def. Teru Rock - Great FT3 with two games going into last round. Both players zoned looking for jabs and reversals, but Kwiggle was able to get the upper hand with Phase 4, sending Teru to losers.

Siologica def. Sonic Fox - This FT3 was insane because Sonic Fox had his greatest strengths play against him. Siologica read almost all of Phase 4's jabs and retorted with his own. If you also include that strong environmental damage and adaptability, Sonic Fox simply ran out of options before he could build enough momentum.

Hoodless def. Rikuto - Watching these two is like watching a UFC fight, or an epic fight in DBZ. When you...