In an interview with Silconera, the game director of Dead or Alive 6, Yohei Shimbori, talked about designing certain characters, Esports, and a free-to-play version of the game that is set to come out after the launch of the game.
The free-to-play version is called Core Fighters, and was first revealed after it got listed on the Xbox store, but the listing has since been taken down. Speaking about the news, Shumbori said, “First of all, about the listing on the Microsoft Store, that was a mistake from the development team.” Shimbori goes on to say that there are plans to make a free version but there is no set release date. He stressed that the version will come out after the launch of the full game. This version will be similar to Dead or Alive 5: Core Fighters which was Dead or Alive 5‘s free-to-play version of the game, which only had 4 playable characters and some additional costume unlocks.
In addition to the other version of the game, Director Shimbori also discussed designing Diego and NiCO who are two new fighters for the Dead or Alive series. “Diego was targeted towards the North American market and for male players.” He did his research and they decided to come up with a character who you might see walking around the streets in everyday life.
NiCO’s character is who he is for the story of Dead or Alive 6. Shimbori wanted another scientist, and chose Japanese anime as an inspiration for his character. “I wanted to look into a character who was influenced by anime because not just Japan, but also anime fans are everywhere around the world. I’ve seen that Dead or Alive fans also tend to be anime fans so I thought this character would be appealing to them too.”
Regarding Esports, Yohei Shimbori believes that Dead or Alive 6 is a contender in the fighting game scene. “We’re regarding ourselves as a challenger in eSports since there are already giants in the competitive fighting game scene such as Street Fighter and Tekken. One thing unique is we will have a free-to-play version which will appeal to casual players to make the eSports fanbase broader.”
Dead or Alive 6 will be released on March 1, 2019, for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.