It was recently announced at Tokyo Game Show 2016 that the inaugural EVO Japan is set for January 2018. Along with the announcement is a list of well-known fighting game community partnerships in Japan such as VFR (for Virtua Fighter’s Beat-Tribe Cup series), the legendary Mikado Arcade, KVO, Cooperation Cup, Game Newton, Tekken's MASTERCUP series, and much more. The partnership that stood out from the rest is Playse, which is known for hosting DOA tournaments in Japan.
In addition, former Shoryuken writer Ian “iantothemax” Walker speculated a tweet listing three 3D fighting games and the website of their communities, with FreeStepDodge being one of them.
This isn't the first time DOA has appeared at EVO, since DOA4 appeared at EVO 2006. Could this mean something huge for the DOA community? We’ll have to wait and see when the EVO Japan lineup is announced at EVO 2017 in July.