Team NINJA is Planning to Reboot Dead or Alive and NINJA Gaiden

Some breaking news has been released today during Team NINJA's keynote at the South Korea G-Star conference by Fumihiko Yasuda that Dead or Alive and NINJA Gaiden reboots will be the future of the company after the release of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty & Rise of Ronin. The final image presented in the breaking story has been translated by key individuals in our community including @WAZAAAAA and @Matt Ponton respectively:

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Team NINJA's Future - Reboot of Popular Series - Images of NINJA Gaiden & Dead or Alive ​

There is a lot of information in this story, and we will break all of it down here at Free Step Dodge, but this looks like extremely positive evidence of a future and now is probably not the time to leave the DOA community if you were planning to jump the fence. We've been covering Team NINJA's Fumihiko Yasuda all year and he checks all of the boxes of a proper president: he's been honest, he's developed legendary games, he's focused on the present and the future.

We don't know all of the details yet, but everyone interested should be inclined to give Yasuda a chance after (in all due respect) the marketing blunder that Yohei Shimbori was vacuumed into as Team NINJA director and producer for Dead or Alive 6. Shimbori was put into a position where he could not excel with DOA6 and was unfortunately retired because of it not to dampen the rest of his career which was a legendary run on his part.

If we find out in ANYWAY that these translations are inaccurate, we will remove them, but as of now they have been double checked, fact checked, site checked and approved for this story release. Also, it's important to consider that the term 'reboot' can mean a wide array of different things, some elements that could have negative impact and some elements that could have positive impact and we ask that you consider that when discussing the future of the games. Seeing as how Yasuda has been as transparent as he can be to a global audience; this is a good indicator of things to come.

 

I think modern team ninja will be much happier releasing a strict budget, japan-focused IP (ie all boobs no mechanics) with absolutely no concern for how the west perceives it.

This is literally Venus Vacation. I know DOA fans have come to expect the worst but I see no reason to reboot the franchise to do the same thing again.

 

This is literally Venus Vacation. I know DOA fans have come to expect the worst but I see no reason to reboot the franchise to do the same thing again.

Alright on this I’m pretty sure he was joking and or that was the point.

 

A reboot doesn't sound like a bad idea imo. I mean, they legitimately do not know what to do with the series at the moment (specifically the fighting game versions at present timeline). If we have to be real, DOAVV/X is carrying the series at the moment on staying alive.

Only downside is knowing whether or not it'll be a good product. If they are planning to do a reboot, then I highly hope they put in a lot of effort into it and budget (which i'm always skeptical about that isn't Nioh-type related). Definitely need more info about it though.

 

Im here for any doa (not the x games, oh amd 2 were fine but other than that, nah) and ng titles. Thats all there is to it.

 

I wonder how far they mean by reboot, like as in soft reboot of just “the series is back” or hard reboot of like, this next game is called DOA or something and the story is from scratch or something, either way its nice just to hear the series is not completely dead in Venus Vacation limbo. Also… can’t really help but be extremely cautious given doa6 and how it turned out :/

 

No thanks. Make a whole new game from scratch. Fuck the stun game.



Good ideas. Back to basics reboot with the original DOA1 cast?



DOA Heroines with guest star Ryu Hayabusa (or a female version of him lul)

Dead or Alive 5's Gameplay was already perfect in fact those Power Blows can make it seem more intelligent in their style. Dead or Alive 6 shits the fan so hard they're a watered down version.

For the cast, I just basically want ALL THE FIGHTERS from the first game to the fourth Dead or Alive game without having the use of stereotypical lolitas. I mean what's the company wanting to do with Lolita fighters? They're no use to a 3D Fighting game like DOA!!

 

I'd love a reboot where they don't just make a DOA7 but a DOA where they take the best parts (characters, stages, modes, music, costumes...) from all the other games and combine it to a whole amazing package. That'd be a reboot I am excited about.
I am worried however they'll double down on what DOA6 was. No, thanks to that.

 

Hmmm, I wish I could be whole-heartedly hyped, but historically the word "reboot" has resulted in mostly "do not want" from me with most series that had them. I would not consider DOAD to be a reboot at all, they never even used the word, plus if we could consider any part of it as rebooting anything at all it was just the story. I'd be all for a new retelling of the story up to this point, but not erasing it all and starting over with plenty of the original story (and even characters) omitted/replaced. This better not be the SCV of the DOA series, or something. I also doubt they're going to go back to gameplay basics of the older games. I'm not thinking too hard about it, but I don't think any other FG series has ever really rebooted before... so it's really up in the air for me how different a DOA we'll be seeing as there's no precedent, especially when it comes to gameplay, but I have to believe the word "reboot" is being used for a reason.

Plus, sorry to fellow fans of the fanservice, but the trend has been generally going against that even from Japanese devs ever since Sony changed its policies to be stricter and at the same time more vague towards sexual content, as devs don't want to deal with the back and forth with the people behind the most popular high-powered console (especially in Japan) as to what is ok and what isn't. So, there's that pressure as well as the pressure from wanting to appeal to the tourney scene (i.e. Evo, which is owned by Sony now, right?). This would also put NG/DOA more in line with TN's other recent, bigger hit games which are tonally far more "serious" and give it a more separate image from the DOAX series. If there's gonna be any chance for them to settle once and for all whither or not they want to "tone down" or continue to cater to fans of fanservice, a reboot in this decade is the best chance to do that. It worked for Uncharted Raider last decade, right? Meanwhile, MK: continue to unnecessarily rip people's innards out through their ass, that's fine. Just to be clear, this is not the way I want things to turn out, I'm just being a realist based on my knowledge of the industry the past few years.

It's good to see so soon that they're already at least thinking of what's next for DOA, tho, so there can be no doubt that the series isn't dead or even that it's entered a long post-DOA4 kind of phase. It shows that they still feel that DOA and NG are important products to have in their line-up, even though you can argue they don't really need them anymore after their other recent successes and TN having such a full plate these days. I never thought it was dead, of course, but I thought/hoped they'd come back with DOA7, DOA6 Ultimate, or even something like DOAD2, more than a reboot. I mostly put reboot at the bottom of possibilities because restarting the story might make it hard to bring back their new covergirls Marie-Rose and Honoka (not to mention everything I said in the last paragraph would apply to them more than any other character, then even the likes of Kasumi and Ayane again if they're aged back down).

A reboot is something you do when a series had had multiple failures, not when you had one badly received game that followed a very successful game. The thing that was ruining DOA's perception among the mainstream was their business/DLC practices more than anything else about the games themselves.

Oh well, whatever it is, at least it better have rollback...

 

I would not consider DOAD to be a reboot at all, they never even used the word, plus if we could consider any part of it as rebooting anything at all it was just the story.

The words they did use were "Final" and "Last".

 

I'm not sure how much I trust current TN. On the flip side though I'm nearing 40 and that puts things in serious perspective for me....lmao. If they do it right, great, if not I'm too old to care anymore -_-

 

The words they did use were "Final" and "Last".

Oh yeah, been over a decade, but they were using DOAD to test to see if the series was still viable after so long after DOA4, right? I guess we can all be glad they decided it was successfully enough to move onto DOA5, then.

It was the first DOA game I was able to buy brand new, actually, lol. Got a cousin to buy a copy too.

 

So . . . uhhh . . . DOA4 ?

DOA4 did a lot of great things, imo, but few would have the opinion that it had the best gameplay. I doubt anyone would say that there's been a DOA that featured the best of the series in every category. So far, pretty much every game has strong pros and cons against it, more or less. Nice to see you finally posting among the rest of us btw.

 

Yay! We're getting a DOA4 Ultimate!

Honestly, I'd be all for that. But then again, it can be argued that DOAD was exactly that, lol. And there's no way they or anyone would consider such a game to be a "reboot", so there's no way that's what the next game is gonna be.

 

I doubt they will recreate the OG cast as you know them. If its truly a reboot you can expect modern TN to focus their designs to be more lolicon with a few other common tropes scattered here and there.

Basically, I see it turning into Senran Kagura. Terrible low budget included.

Anyway, that's enough crystal balling from me. I have no inside information on this and I doubt even TN knows what they are doing at this moment.

It's actually surprising to me that the reboot fears here so far are more skewed towards DOA doubling down on the fanservice, actually. I said it in my long-ass post already, but basically that goes against recent trends in the industry.

Sony basically killed Senran Kagura, lol, in case you didn't know. A recently announced game similar to Senran Kagura is even being ridiculed for being too tame right now.

A DOA reboot is more likely to be more tonally boring in-line with VF's story/characters than anything else, imo. I know that might have some fans overjoyed tho, lol.

 

How intriguing. I'm curious how this reboot of DOA will play out. Perhaps it will be like how Bamco did with Soul Calibur 6. Also yes, Ninja Gaiden definitely needs to return.

A SCVI style reboot would be the way to go (storywise, not let's add silly RE/mechanics-wise). A DOA7 akin to DOA2/3 with 9th gen. technology? Yes please!

As for a new Ninja Gaiden, I'm thinking along the lines of whatever a Ninja Gaiden Black meets Nioh in terms of mechanical prowess would lead to.

 

Oh yeah, been over a decade, but they were using DOAD to test to see if the series was still viable after so long after DOA4, right?

Actually, they weren't even doing that. Koei just felt the series was worthless, as they only wanted Tecmo for the NG i.p. Shimbori kept pestering them that they needed to do a new DOA game, and eventually Koei caved with "Sigh... fine.... you can do ONE game, but it's the final one of the series, then you have to just shut up about it."

Koei didnt even believe in the game (or the team for that matter) until they saw the game released with the higheset average review score of any 3DS title of the time. That was when they were like "okay, maybe there is something to this thing... so you can do another." Where they proceeded, like NG3, to cut the budget and project time in half from what they originally planned. DOA5U was what the original plan for how DOA5 was supposed to look/feel.

 

A SCVI style reboot would be the way to go (storywise, not let's add silly RE/mechanics-wise). A DOA7 akin to DOA2/3 with 9th gen. technology? Yes please!

As for a new Ninja Gaiden, I'm thinking along the lines of whatever a Ninja Gaiden Black meets Nioh in terms of mechanical prowess would lead to.

If SC6 is really not only considered to be but was intended to be a reboot of SC, then yeah, that's a precedent that has me more positive about what a DOA reboot could be, a little.

 

Actually, they weren't even doing that. Koei just felt the series was worthless, as they only wanted Tecmo for the NG i.p. Shimbori kept pestering them that they needed to do a new DOA game, and eventually Koei caved with "Sigh... fine.... you can do ONE game, but it's the final one of the series, then you have to just shut up about it."

Koei didnt even believe in the game (or the team for that matter) until they saw the game released with the higheset average review score of any 3DS title of the time. That was when they were like "okay, maybe there is something to this thing... so you can do another." Where they proceeded, like NG3, to cut the budget and project time in half from what they originally planned. DOA5U was what the original plan for how DOA5 was supposed to look/feel.

Yeah, that's why it's still hard for me to believe that they never followed up that success on 3DS with a game or port or something for Switch. But yeah, DOA5U was peak-DOA5 for me for sure.

 

After reading the Korean article, I must say that I'm pretty happy that TN is getting another shot at this. I just hope that the team working on the DOA reboot can successfully get the time, money (and I mean an actual GOOD budget this time) and resources they need. The last thing this upcoming entry needs is another rushed and no budget release. Oh yeah, and do include rollback netcode please. No excuses.

 

all we can do is wait to see how this turn out and hope they consider community feedback or have a team that knows what they're doing and how to make a competitive 3D game. I think they need to make a DoA fighter from scratch, take the best parts of every doa to give us a game we all want while also maintaining the casual appeal. Perhaps they need to look at Tekken, SC and VF for research