Free Step Dodge

Dead or Alive Festival was a killer event that not only delivered one of the finest fighting tournaments the FGC has ever seen, but also revealed the addition of Mai (from Fatal Fury and KoF) to the Dead or Alive roster. I believe it was very exciting to any of the community skeptics who thought the reveal may only be a few costumes and a new stage.

In this excellent article written by Christian Bahn we get to hear more from the often-times quiet, Creative Director of Team NINJA, Tom Lee -- who has quite a bit to say not just about crossovers, but the community as well. The Virtua Fighter crossover was the blueprint of success, not only because the characters transitioned well into the DOA universe, but because it made sense. Now that...

Mai Shiranui from the legendary Fatal Fury and King of Fighters series is coming to Dead or Alive! Since her birthplace is in Japan it seems like Dead or Alive Festival 2016 is the perfect place to announce this intense crossover. She has her own style of ninjutsu and the look to fit in right at home with the DOA girls... and she's coming soon!

There will also be an Attack on Titan stage, tons more costumes (including some KoF) and even some VR announced for Dead or Alive Xtreme 3. Team NINJA is dipping into a lot of neat and interesting projects this year!


KoF Maximum Impact Video | KoF XIII Combo Video | Mai Shiranui Wiki

FULL SHOW

Show Highlights:

Interesting Photo Contest with multiple winners - Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 VR announcement - Dead or Alive Costume Lineup for Fairytale and other various anime - @EMPEROR_COW took over the cosplay contest

Teru Rock takes on Bayman - Mila is taken to new heights - Insane Phase 4 action by @BBoyDragon - XcaliburBladeZ brings back Alpha and goes warp crazy - Bladez wins DOA Festival 2016

Stay tuned for the replay with news to follow.

In just a few short days the DOA Festival will be streamed live via Tokyo, Japan. Team NINJA has just now recently added the event trailer to their Youtube channel, and this is probably the most exciting thing we have seen from Team NINJA all year long... if not since Last Round or Dead or Alive Xtreme 3's announcement last festival.

Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of DOA, the trailer highlights the past games and may even create a desire in your heart for a remastered DOA collection fully optimized for online play. Of course this is wishful thinking, but what could be in store for us DOA5 players? Hayashi hinted big things in store for DOA and DOA Festival seems like the perfect platform to inform the community on these things.

Regardless of what happens, we are getting an exciting event that will appeal to anyone remotely interested in Dead or Alive. Keep coming to FreeStepDodge this...

DOA Festival was an amazing event last year not just because of the incredible offline tournament -- but because it was an event that had serious appeal to every last person remotely interested in Dead or Alive. This year Team NINJA is doing it again with the same mindset they had in 2015.

Team NINJA announced Dead or Alive Xtreme 3 at the event last year; a game that people had waited nearly ten years to play. With an announcement like that last year, do you think we could see another special DOA related announcement next month? My opinion is, yes... we will see something new; especially since Hayashi has indicated big news for DOA more recently.

The electric Xcalibur Blades, the frantic and visceral style of @BBoyDragon and the risky but graceful Air Gear will all be representing North...

(2025 News Archive Update) 'The Republic of Fighters 2016' Tournament Replay is one of the few missing Replays from our nearly complete ecosystem! If you are able to recover footage of this tournament, please contact me or Matt Ponton immediately!

There are always quite a few memorable matches at this overseas event, and to my knowledge Gehaktbal has won it nearly every year but lost just once against Sweet Revenge when he was on his big win streak in the DOA5U days.

Today, Spooky's Channel was updated with DOA clips from an event that happened in Taiwan. I knew nothing about this tournament, which is strange, but this shows how far along the offline scene for DOA has come. We have tournaments going on all over the world.

Speaking of the world - 'Republic of Fighters' is happening tomorrow in Paris. Check the story below for all the good details including streaming information. These videos should satisfy your cravings until then:


MartianBoy... hmm name sounds familiar. This guy plays as Bass and takes on a Hitomi that tries using pressure to get to Bass. It doesn't work in the beginning, but he begins to block more and the Bass chokes a bit but still gets the win. Good tech, and good environmental damage in the early going.


This Hitomi player, 100cm, fights a Marie Rose the best he can with pressure and basic but effective strings. The Marie Rose player was doing his best to zone and retorted...

Players from all around the world are wondering... where can I compete with a Dead or Alive Major that is not in the states? Thanks to the Team NINJA Battle Royal the community has been given a bigger platform to compete. Providing everything you could possibly want, it's time for Australians to take advantage of this opportunity and show the world what they have got at BAM8.

With the 1,000 USD Prize Pool, free entry to the tournament and a chance to win a trip to the final showdown - what have you go to lose? You've been playing DOA5 since 2012; you have been keeping up with it every step of the way and now is the time to step up and put your skills to the test with this incredible Australian Major.

Have you been keeping up with the 2016 Battle Royal? If you haven't; it's important to note again that BAM8 will be happening May 13th. So, as you train and plan for this event and future events be sure to scope out the competition by watching the previous tournament.




We see some intense matches here from @Berzerk! @ebabil @Tones @PerfectLegend and more. This was a highly overlooked Last Round tournament and if you haven't seen it already give it a proper viewing by watching all three videos included.

Battle Arena Melbourne 8 is planned for next month and will be the next part of Team NINJA's 2016 Battle Royal. What's so unique about this tournament is that it will take place in Australia (if you didn't know already). To my knowledge it is the only Australian major for DOA5. The winner will walk away with the experience of a lifetime; and will be flown out for free to the showdown at NEC. Worth it? I think so! There is also a 1,000 USD prize pot bonus complements of Team NINJA!

Hello everyone!

Six years ago today, I set out with @virtuaPAI and @The HuBBs to create a Dead or Alive forum that could help spread the word about the depth of Dead or Alive. I'm happy to be sitting here six years later reflecting on how far we have come as a community. We took this series from average tournament entrant numbers of fourteen (high of thirty) to an average entrant number of sixty (high of ninety-eight). It would be a severe understatement to say we have had little growth since the days of Dead or Alive 4 and the Championship Gaming Series. Of course, we couldn't have grown so much without the help from everyone at Team NINJA and tournament organizers such as Eric "Big E" Smalls and Larry "Shin Blanka" Dixon.

In addition to the growth of our own local scene, the global community has grown even more. In the year of 2015 alone, we had two tournament events that featured players from across the oceans meeting together to compete. The Dead...

The fourth episode of the Fighters' Destiny DOA Documentary was released a few days ago, and if you haven't had the opportunity to give it a watch or noticed it in our media section, then we highly recommend that you give it a watch.

This latest episode focuses on the International Players taking part of the Battle Royal tournament series, shedding light and giving insight on players such as NEC's 2016 tournament champ, JC Akira, Teru Rock, Reepal "R I P" Parbhoo, Europe's very own @Gehaktbal, as well as the very familiar faces of the North American DOA players, each weighing in on how they take their DOA offensive/defensive approach compared to other players in different territories.

You have all of that plus some great discussion about the Battle Royal...

Naotora has released officially for Xbox One and Playstation 4 alongside patch 1.05. Patch 1.05 also introduces Azuchi, a rebuilt stage hailing from Dead or Alive 3. A slow rollout in some territories delayed some fighters from getting their lab time in but she should now be available in all territories the game is sold in for consoles. The character alone is $5.99 USD and she is also available in the full third season costume pass as well as with a debut costume set focused just on Naotora. Steam will be seeing her release near to the end of the month. Check out her launch trailer and patch notes below.

1.05 Patch Notes


Leave your first impressions in the comments.

Congratulations on your win, @XCaLibur BLadeZ. Today the community has been treated to a super hype Top 8. Check out the Challonge and the Team Spooky past broadcast later for complete results.

Though a lot has to be said about @LordXav1er and his performance at Winter Brawl. He has utilized Hitomi extremely well in every aspect of the game meta and got into a 'Last Round Battle' with the one and only Sonic Fox. He also got a win over @Sly Bass and his meticulous Brad Wong. That had to be one of my favorite sets and it was another really close matchup.

@NoctTengu really came close to beating @Jaeger after defeating @BBoyDragon. His Nyo Tengu was on point with setups, combos and environmental damage. Probably the best Nyo Tengu performance I have seen since NINJA CW at TFC 2014.

After Sonic Fox...

(2025 News Archive Update) Unfortunately the Player Pool Replays for 'Winter Brawl X' are no longer available to our knowledge. If you recover these matches please inform us immediately so that we can continue to update this ten-year-old story! Thank you!

The Player Pools are streaming live now via the fine people at Bifuteki. We are seeing some of the all-time greats, veterans and newcomers alike trying to make statements before the 2016 Battle Royal begins at 'Final Round 19.'

We have seen @LordXav1er really give a solid fight today with his Hitomi. He had a successful environmental combo that was super clutch and held his own against the one and only @Jaeger. We also saw @Sly Bass lose in what many would call an upset to Alithical's Ayane. Stay tuned tomorrow as well for the Grand Finals at Team...

We've already seen that a new character from Samurai Warriors is coming out next month... but at least the new stage is from DOA; Azuchi from DOA3. This classic level not only looks gorgeous but has plenty of walls and torches to send people through staying true to the importance of environmental damage.

The patch notes are here, and they have stirred up a lot of controversy in the competitive group. From Sweet Revenge being salty about Genfu's 44P nerf, to Sly Bass mentioning Akira's changes. Some of the adjustments are still a little hard to understand, but the translations will give you a good idea what to expect.

While pre-registration is over, you can still enjoy the 'Winter Brawl X' tournament by watching it live on Twitch! DOA5 isn't on today, but it will be tomorrow at Bifuteki starting at 2PM EST. Then on Sunday the action starts at 12EST on Team Spooky's channel to close the tournament.

Team NINJA's 2016 Battle Royal starts in a month and will kick off at 'Final Round 19' as said in previous news posts. Thankfully we don't have to wait for that tournament to get the full schedule of the Battle Royal. The main card also lets us know that Team NINJA has plans to do the Battle Royal again in 2017.

Pre-registration is almost over for 'Final Round 19' so get registered today would you!? If you look at the prize for Qualifiers, you will see that there is a 1,000-dollar pot bonus plus a sponsorship to NEC XVII so let's get to work!

It pains me to say this, but the DOA Legacy side event is cancelled. No one contacted me to run it, so I am left with cancelling it. I do apologize to everyone that was interested in the DOA Legacy Side Tournament. I will try to have this at Summer Jam if possible.

Since 'Final Round 19' is coming up I thought I would contact the current Final Round Champion: "MC Static" also known as Emann to get his thoughts on Team NINJA's Battle Royal and how it has helped the community. He also wastes no time discussing his focus on: JC Akira (Who MIGHT be at FR19), his loss at NEC to JC Akira, and how he's using this loss as an advantage to be in the best condition he has ever been in as a player.

You're not only going to be defending your title at FR19 but also have the pressure of opening the 2016 Battle Royal. How do you feel about this?

E-Mann: I personally believe that Team NINJA's Battle Royal was a great idea to help not only promote the community but to also encourage different players from all over the country and the world to attend and be a part of the awesome offline experience. From what I've seen it has greatly benefited our community, and inspired even more players to attempt and make the next Battle Royal.

How do you feel...