You guys — Dead or Alive 6 is officially the poster child for how not to manage legacy content. The original game came out in March 2019 and already had around 45% positive reviews at launch (that's bad by any standard), then KOEI TECMO delisted that version on Steam and replaced it with "Last Round" — a June 2023 release of a SEVEN-year-old game under a completely new AppID. Because it's a different ID, your old DLC doesn't transfer over; they essentially nuked the existing product and released a clone, then asked people who already owned the previous version to rebuy everything at full price for "Last Round" content that is mostly just recycled assets. The original was framed as a showcase with new stages and costumes from the 2018 trailer, but much of that genuinely isn't in Last Round — it's a patch job masquerading as an edition, and they still want $59 for the Season Pass even after years of sales on the old version.
The Steam reviews tell the real story: it has dropped to roughly 40-45% positive with nearly 4,000 reviewers slamming the execution. We're talking persistent bugs where fighters can't enter arenas and characters walk through walls (yes, in a fighting game), glitchy animations that ruin cross-play matches, and clunky netcode for what was supposed to be the latest generation of DOA. Then there's the marketing — it costs $59 now but Steam shows "Now on sale" stickers constantly because no one will buy this garbage at full price after being told they have to rebuy their old stuff. KOEI TECMO could have done a proper bundle with entitlements instead of this shell game, and that would have saved them the PR nightmare and the flooded review section. They're asking for repeat purchases on a product that isn't even fully functional — which is genuinely disrespectful to people who supported the franchise for years.
Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/dead-or-alive-6-last-round-pummeled-by-negative-reviews-as-koei-tecmo-asks-players-to-rebuy-dlc
The Steam reviews tell the real story: it has dropped to roughly 40-45% positive with nearly 4,000 reviewers slamming the execution. We're talking persistent bugs where fighters can't enter arenas and characters walk through walls (yes, in a fighting game), glitchy animations that ruin cross-play matches, and clunky netcode for what was supposed to be the latest generation of DOA. Then there's the marketing — it costs $59 now but Steam shows "Now on sale" stickers constantly because no one will buy this garbage at full price after being told they have to rebuy their old stuff. KOEI TECMO could have done a proper bundle with entitlements instead of this shell game, and that would have saved them the PR nightmare and the flooded review section. They're asking for repeat purchases on a product that isn't even fully functional — which is genuinely disrespectful to people who supported the franchise for years.
Source: https://www.ign.com/articles/dead-or-alive-6-last-round-pummeled-by-negative-reviews-as-koei-tecmo-asks-players-to-rebuy-dlc