Originally supposed to be out on February 15, 2019, Dead or Alive 6 was soon delayed to March 1, 2019. This delay announcement was roughly a month out from the initial release date and came to many fans’ dismay, but it was so that the developers could further polish out the balancing of the characters, as they wanted it to be right before it was released. With the release date pushed out to March, a longer wait began.
With no prior announcements, publisher Koei Tecmo released a tweet that had a fairly large surprise in it:
Fighters Online Beta test for #DOA6 is available for pre download now! It will be playable Jan. 11th 2019 at 8:00AM PDT – Jan. 14th 7:59AM PDT. Kasumi, Ayane, Hayabusa, Hayate, and one of the most anticipated newcomers, Diego will be the available characters! #DEADORALIVE6 #DOA6 pic.twitter.com/YXhsKjEyua
— DOATEC(DOA6)OFFICIAL (@DOATEC_OFFICIAL) January 11, 2019
Dead or Alive 6 is getting an Online Beta Test for 3 whole days. Whether or not this is to help with the aforementioned balancing issues, it is unspecified. The beta test will have 5 characters available to play: Kasumi, Ayane, Hayabusa, Hayate, and new fighter Diego. The test was available to download when the tweet was sent out on January 10, and it went live this morning at 7AM EST and will stay live for exactly 72 hours since the starting time.
The tweet doesn’t mention any platform that the Dead or Alive 6 demo would be going up on, so many people had assumed it would be across PS4, Xbox One, and PC. However, after the time stamps, the demo was only released to PS+ members. There is no information on if the demo will be available for Steam and Xbox within the 3 day time frame.
For now, those with PS+ Members can download the beta test and enjoy playing through the 5 characters for the next three days. The Dead or Alive 6 Online Demo Beta test ends on January 14, 2019. And that’s the only time that fans can play the game before it’s released on March 1, 2019. For anymore surprise beta test drops like this one, check out the Dead or Alive Twitter account.