Dead or Alive 6’s free-to-play version is already here

Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja released on Friday the free-to-play version of fighting game Dead or Alive 6 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One. Called Dead or Alive 6: Core Fighters, the game includes four playable characters: Kasumi, Hitomi, Diego, and Bass.

Additional characters can be purchased for $3.99 each, and Koei Tecmo is already selling a handful of character bundles. Dead or Alive 6’s nine male fighters can be purchased for $33.99; the game’s 11 female fighters come in a separate bundle for $39.99; and all 20 characters can be purchased for $49.99.

Dead or Alive 6: Core Fighters offers access to the game’s versus, arcade, time attack, training, and DOA Quest modes, as well as online ranked battles. An introduction to DOA 6’s story mode is also part of the free package, but if you want to unlock the full thing, that’s a $19.99 add-on.

Koei Tecmo offered a similar free-to-play version of Dead or Alive 5: Last Round. That Core Fighters version of DOA 5 was a major content effort for the company; more than 1,100 add-ons, including characters, costumes, modes, and bundles are available for that version of the game.

Team Ninja has also updated the main version of Dead or Alive 6 to add support for new costumes, and to alter the way that players earn credits toward built-in costumes. Previously, as noted in our review of the game, the way credits were doled out for costumes was random; players earned points in various game modes, but those points went to random characters’ unlockable skins. Now, points are applied to the character you’re playing in modes like ranked battles, arcade, time attack, and survival. Koei Tecmo and Team Ninja have also extended a promotional period that maintains the point multiplier for costumes at 100 times the normal rate.