Free Step Dodge

Team NINJA is off to a good start with their TGS presentations! Day 1 introduced new players to DOA6 with an overview of everything currently announced, and the second day was an opportunity for Japanese players to discover and share DOA6 for the first time. @Matt Ponton is updating us live in Japan from the FSD Twitter with gameplay bits and move-lists, so be sure to follow us for the latest news.

Day 3 has concluded for the Koei Tecmo live TGS stream. Shimbori cosplays a stunning Bayman and conducted a very entertaining DOA6 Exhibition with other fighters on the show floor. We didn't see a whole lot of new stuff at the exhibition, but tomorrow you can enjoy a DOA6 tournament with a special trailer to conclude Team NINJA's TGS. If you want to share anything you've found at TGS please do so in the forum!

Yohei Shimbori, Director of Dead or Alive 6, was on stage for 45 minutes to show off an updated version of DOA6 to launch Team NINJA's TGS Schedule.

We enjoyed some hands on gameplay of the new characters announced in the release date trailer. Ayane, Marie Rose, Honoka and Bayman have all been shown, and their entries have been added to the official Dead or Alive 6 website. The website is a good compilation of what Team NINJA has announced so far and offers hints and clues to the direction of the game from story mode, character biographies and features.

The demonstration confirmed that the Lost Paradise stage is indeed the DOAX2 version of Zack Island, now inhabited by dinosaurs. As mentioned in our reveal story...

Before TGS begins, Team NINJA decides to keep the hype train rolling steadily on the tracks with a 2/15/2019 release date, new character reveals, a new stage and pre-order selections that also reveal characters coming to Dead or Alive 6. The release date trailer also gives us an idea of what they intend to do with the story, and that it will be a prominent feature of the final product. According to the Tokyo Game Show schedule, this is not the special TGS trailer that will be shown during the tournament in Japan.


Team NINJA opens the video with what is speculated to be a heavily guarded MIST operation. Ayane is introduced for the first time in DOA6 infiltrating the area in a beautiful combat suit; likely looking to rescue her half-brother, Hayate, or searching for his whereabouts. Marie Rose is then introduced right after the Team NINJA logo is shown, and in the next scene we see Honoka...

Koei Tecmo released their schedule for TGS, and it looks to be another strong, informative showing from Team NINJA. The annual Tokyo Game Show is happening September 20th-23rd, and Dead or Alive 6 will be a featured game nearly every day of the event. There have been a number of years where TGS has revealed very little to us, but it would seem Team NINJA is more transparent and open with DOA6 than any previous title, and this makes better news leading up to the release.

Yohei Shimbori will open the show on the 20th with a 45-minute overview of Dead or Alive 6. He will show an updated game here and follow up with any community questions that players could have left. Shimbori is definitely in touch with what the fighters like, and this will be an excellent platform to educate us on the progress of DOA6. Anyone that would like more information on gameplay will likely enjoy this stream.

DOA does not have announcements on the 21st, but...

The Dead or Alive 5: Last Round tournament at Summer Jam was a complete event with a surprise IRL stream from @Dragon Ninja, incredible matches from everyone in attendance, and a big win for @Bboy Dragon. @Ichiron47 came close to winning SJ, and successfully reset the Grand Final, but Bboy's sheer aggression was too much You can view Dragon's stream in several different parts via his Twitch channel.

For your reference: Part 1 is a brief test stream with one match, Part 2 contains pools, Part 3 completes top 4, and Part 4 is Grand Finals. You can follow along with the finished bracket to keep...

Welcome to This Week at FSD, a new highlight story each week that will be dedicated to the activities of the community and Team NINJA news. For those that would like to catch up with everything going on at once, see this as your Sunday paper. This week, FSD dissects the Gamescom build, community contributions and some news pertaining to Summer Jam XII this weekend.


Despite low attendance this year, and no planned stream for Summer Jam XII, the tournament will still be taking place this Saturday for Dead or Alive 5: Last Round. @XcaliburBladeZ will be there to defend his title, and other big talents like @Jager, @BBoyDragon and...

At the EVO 18 Showdown, Team NINJA released some teaser images of Leifang and Hitomi, and a day before Gamescom kicks off they release the official trailer for the characters and also show us the new pirate ship location titled Forbidden Fortune complete with plenty of environmental damage opportunities. With Dead or Alive 6 information releasing more steadily, it seems like upgrading FSD was a good idea, wouldn't you say?

Leifang and Hitomi begin this trailer with an intro that could be unique to them due to the mimicking of kicks before the fight begins on the top outside area of the ship. The first frame of the fight starts off by showing us that the stern of the pirate ship can catch fire, and right away we see a...

Welcome back to your favorite Dead or Alive Community! We're still working on a few things, so pardon us while we tidy the place up, but we figured the most important pieces are in place. So what's different?

Starting it off, we're sporting a fresh new theme. Presently that will be the only theme option, though that may change down the line. You'll notice some sweet new Dead or Alive 6 header images that are a bit more than just a bar, some new coloration throughout the theme, and a cleaner look overall. This extends to our overhauled front page for articles, so look forward to some changes to our content delivery alongside the different flavor. There's a bit more to it but we'll leave the finer details to you all to find.

For a cool new feature available to everyone, we have enabled the ability to customize your own Profile Covers! Head to your Profile, find the 'Cover' option, and update your color to be whatever you like. For...

@Rikuto and the rest of the community put on some of the best fights we've ever seen in DOA history that not only told a six year story in the making, but showed us passion and dedication that alone defines Team NINJA's reasoning for putting more emphasis on gameplay. This incredibly detailed interview at FSD's Twitch displays the zeal of Rikuto, and there is a text-based interview from Koei Tecmo Europe that was hyped up last week to go with it. The level of commitment the community has shown for DOA5: Last Round is a great precursor heading into DOA6's competitive scene and this was the perfect conclusion to a masterpiece of a game.

Now that he's had some time to breath...

Before EVO 18 even started we were welcomed to new Dead or Alive 6 character, Diego! After the Showdown we were treated to a blacked out image of Leifang and Hitomi who will both be officially announced at Gamescom!! We might have to wait one more week to see the trailer, but a friend of @Mr. Wah did a little brightening on those two images for some pretty cool results.

Hitomi is wearing her original karate outfit from Dead or Alive 3 which was even easier to guess and has been one of her staple outfits. Either way this didn't seem like a very hard puzzle to solve, but every last bit of content is new...

The Dead or Alive 5 Showdown at EVO 18 was a critical moment in DOA history, because it not only showed us how far we have come along, but how much growing is still possible, and that with DOA6 we're just getting started. The matches at EVO attracted thousands of people that have never played and six years later we break DOA's tournament attendance record at 150+ entrants. Say what you want, but DOA's growth has been stunning and today we are going to run @ZakkuRye EVO 2018 Top 8 Highlights under the microscope along with a highlight of our own.

Not all of the matches were listed in this Top 8 Highlights video, but the community will be observing this tournament for years to come. @Mr. Wah will soon be interviewing @Rikuto on his epic performance at EVO so I will leave...

There is a lot of new Dead or Alive 6 content for the community to dissect and look into, including downloadable move-lists, more hands-on time from the pros, and even some guides that lead to some hard-hitting damage this early on. If you discovered anything from the exhibition or would like to share, now is the time to analyze your experience. Shimbori was correct when he said that EVO would be a celebration of both DOA5 and DOA6:

@ZakkuRye continues to deliver some pretty insane EVO content on his channel and has released 14 videos for the event and does a great job of highlighting what the hardcore offline scene wants to see. FSD founder, Matt Ponton, does a great job highlighting what Diego can do not just with the environment, but current DOA6...

At the end of the DOA5 Last Round tournament, Team Ninja had a small announcement for Dead or Alive 6 done in the form of a teaser, which contains two returning characters from the series: Leifang and Hitomi.

We all know the history of these two characters since Leifang has been around since the first game and Hitomi since the third game. We also know that even though those two are great friends especially since the community named them Team Cabbage, these two lost during the fifth Dead or Alive tournament due to the hands of Jann-Lee. To make matters worst, Hitomi lost to him in the finals in Story Mode of DOA5.

How will these two characters play in this new system? You'll have to wait on August 20, 2018 at Gamescom 2018 to find out for yourself.

Another DOA tournament in the books, ladies and gentlemen! Holy crap, what an event that was!

In case you didn't catch Top 8-Top 4 for DOA5 Last Round, you missed out on a lot of great matches. These competitors reminded us why we play this game and they did a damn good job at it. But in the end, our very own @Rikuto has taken another big tournament this year, and he did his damnest to represent FreeStepDodge to the fullest and become the new champion.

Congratulations to all of Top 8!

1st: FSD|Rikuto
2nd: UGS|XCalibur BladeZ ,,,)
3rd: COMP|TeruRock
4th: Siologica
5th: CrazySteady
5th: Mr. Kwiggle
7th: Play Monster|Soy ,
7th: GXR|Hollow ,

Oh my goodness, DOA community... Day 1 of EVO 2018 was insane with a lot of DOA6 action!

@ZakkuRye, one of the most well-known players in the DOA community has been busy with uploading a lot of DOA6 videos from this event! If you missed out on Day 1, here are some videos that will catch you up to speed.

First things first, Yohei Shimbori (current producer and director of the series) shows off his skills in Dead or Alive 6. As previously mentioned, Shimbori is a huge fighting game fan, and he's not afraid to give anyone these hands!


Next up, we also have the likes of CrazySteady and @Rojikku testing out Helena and Hayate respectively. If you want to know how these characters will play in high-level, look no further...

EVO 2018 is a few days away, and it seems that Team Ninja prepared a brand new trailer for Dead or Alive 6, featuring the return of Rig from Dead or Alive 5, and the latest newcomer to the DOA roster, Diego.


Nicknamed the "Uncrowned Street Hero", Diego has more of a Brawler fighting style, specializing in headbutts and curb-stomping his opponents. His appearance has a similar vibe to the likes of Miguel from the Tekken series.

Rig needs no introduction. Known as the "Fighter Without a Past", Rig retained his stances and his pressure game that we all know and love, along with a few new moves as well. If you remember in DOA5, Rig was responsible for restarting Project Epsilon, as well as serving for M.I.S.T. under Victor Donovan.

In addition to the announcement, IGN provided a gameplay video of Rig and Diego, along with the rest of the cast. It...

This weekend is going to be crazy in Las Vegas at EVO 2018 and there are a lot of things going on with both DOA5 and DOA6, so see this post as your guide to the whole event that will be consistently updated. Top 8 DOA5 will be streamed on EVO's Official Event Channel so this is definitely one of the communities biggest opportunities to perform! After The Showdown has concluded there will be a Results Post with the possibility of more announcements from Team NINJA.

If you are curious to learn more about the big players in the Dead or Alive community this...

August 3rd-4th will be historical days for the Dead or Alive community as we officially see the franchise return to EVO, but Team NINJA is also going to launch the first DOA6 tournament (which I speculated correctly in my last post) that will likely be considered mini because of the small character list announced so far. You can register for this event at Team NINJA's booth. If you are going to be home for the excitement you can watch this blockbuster premier at Team NINJA's Dead or Alive Twitch Channel.

No one predicted all of this madness, but here we are over a month into DOA6's startup and the...

Excitement for the offline scene continues as Team NINJA has added two brand new events to their official Dead or Alive 6 website. The first being a DOA6 "Mini Tournament" which will run on the latest build according to the Japanese site. The second event is an exhibition match, and DOATEC... I mean Team NINJA, will invite the top fighters in the world to compete, a detail not elaborated in the American version of the site.

It's easy to speculate that the DOA6 mini tournament will be at EVO after the Last Round event, but more details will be released soon. The main focus leading to EVO is to fill registration spots and attract people to the event. Currently there are more than 120 spots filled, and if you want...

Team NINJA is now opening registration for their EVO partnered event that will not only close out DOA5's official long-lasting tournament presence, but will introduce the community and gamers across the world to the spectacle that is Dead or Alive 6. After months of dry news and a shorter battle royal, players started getting burnt out on Last Round, but Team NINJA has once again rejuvenated the community and FGC with free entry to the event; plus exciting and new possibilities. Remember the 256 player cap before procrastinating, will you be there?


There are some important notices from the owner of FSD, @Mr. Wah that you should consider for the...

Despite being announced only a few weeks ago, Team NINJA has already managed to secure several awards at E3 2018. The press has taken interest in the developer focusing more on Dead or Alive 6 being an e-sport title as evident by the team partnering up with EVO this year for a big side-tournament event.Team NINJA is also bringing in other gamers like streamer Maximilian, who so far, is enjoying DOA6 greatly.

It's always a good thing when a game is able to get positive attention before its release date. Despite the DOA6 build being around 8% complete, it was still enough to warrant awards from several gaming publications including: IGN, Dual Shockers, Hardcore Gamer, Game Fanatics and more! This doesn't even include the positive vibes from Team NINJA's Nioh 2; it's looking like an exciting year for the community...