Dead or Alive 6 Last Round

Dead or Alive 6 Last Round is the ultimate edition of 2019's DOA6. It offers absolutely no new content outside a pretty decent photo mode, so if you haven't played it yet, now is the time. If you already own DOA6, however, there's almost nothing here that can be recommended. For newcomers, Dead or Alive 6 Last Round is going to be an electric experience, and it's guaranteed to be one of the best fighters this year purely by the will of its savage gameplay. For vets, however, it may indeed be DOA.

Dead or Alive 6 Last Round is a really good fighting game with plenty of single-player content and online features to keep newcomers and returning fans happy. The game's optimizations and improvements are welcomed, but the lack of rollback netcode and cross-play at launch holds Dead or Alive 6 Last Round back.

Dead or Alive 6: Last Round is a solid offering for new and existing players, but it definitely doesn’t feel like a complete package. While it comes with most of the downloadable characters, half of the skins/outfits remain behind paywall, and the overall experience and UI feel dated at this point. It doesn’t help the story mode is dreadful and there’s not a lot to do outside competitive online matches. The mechanics themselves are at the very least enjoyable, as it’s still a gratifying fighting game, but everything around it falls short of anything remarkable. Despite the glamorous character models, Dead or Alive 6: Last Round feels more dated than it should.

Dead or Alive 6 Last Round has two sides to it. For newcomers, it’s easy to recommend: you get a fairly complete version of the game, enhanced with an extensive photo mode and ray tracing on select stages, making for a solid package at a reasonable price. For veteran players, however, Last Round feels like a slap in the face: you lose quite a bit, gain very little in return, and still have to pay 'full' price, even if the core game remains a solid fighter.

As a longtime series fan that is desperate for Dead or Alive to get back on the right track again, it brings no joy to be criticising this disappointing re-release. Dead or Alive 6: Last Round is a game that struggles to justify its existence by including barely any of the previously released DLC by default, missing features from the original title, adding very little in the way of appealing new content, and lacking in crossplay and rollback netcode. DOA is a brilliant fighting series that deserves way better than this, and DOA6LR is still a solid entry, but it is impossible to ignore the missteps taken with this edition.