Team Ninja has announced that it is ceasing support for Dead or Alive 5, along with the developer-sponsored tournaments that came with it.
The announcement came at the end of the Dead or Alive 5 tournament during NEC18 where the developers addressed fans in a video and talked about their feelings towards DoA5, the franchise as a whole and their plans for the future.
“Dead or Alive 5 has finally come to an end, but the Dead or Alive team is very active,” director Yohei Shimbori stated. “It is time to stop what we are doing for now and look into the future.”
As such, they may not be around for some time but are “very much looking forward to seeing [fans] again someday.”
The end of any such content for Dead or Alive 5Â has been a long time coming, especially when considering just how much of it the game has gotten since it debuted in 2012. It got three iterations:Â Dead or Alive 5 Plus (2013), Dead or Alive 5 Ultimate (2013) and Dead or Alive 5 Last Round (2015), as well a bunch of characters like Marie Rose and Honoka, and several costume packs.
Despite that, it was still a rather odd announcement to make due to the events leading up to it.
Everything began last Friday when Team Ninja announced on Twitter that it would have something for fans to look forward to after Battle Royal 2017. Since other major fighting game franchises had received major announcements recently, fans naturally assumed DoA would get one as well — an expectation compounded by the fact that Team Ninja already confirmed that DoA5 wouldn’t be getting new content after this year is over, so the chances of it pertaining to DoA5 was practically non-existent.
However, what came wasn’t an announcement for Dead or Alive 6 or even a remake of an older title…it was that DoA5 wouldn’t be receiving support anymore– something that fans had already known for awhile now.
If nothing else, the video was a nice send off and you can tell that the development team cares a lot about their game but wants to move on and work on something new.
It’s just a shame that the team, perhaps inadvertently, raised everyone’s expectations only for that to be the result.
Check out the announcement below:
