Dead or Alive 6 Last Round forces players to rebuy KOF DLC they already own

Dead or Alive 6 Last Round launched on June 24 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S — and it's already drowning in negative Steam reviews. The main complaint: players are being forced to repurchase DLC they already bought.

Most DLC from the original Dead or Alive 6 transfers over to Last Round, which comes in a free version and a $40 paid edition. The exception is the King of Fighters crossover content — Mai Shiranui and Kula Diamond. No matter which version you own, those characters and their costume packs don't carry over. Koei Tecmo also raised the prices: each character's Unlock Key now costs $11 instead of the original $8, and the character-plus-costume bundles jumped from $16 to $21. If you already spent $40 on the new version and want both KOF fighters with their DLC, you're looking at another $42 on top of that.

The original Dead or Alive 6 launched back in 2019, and Last Round is positioned as a definitive re-release — but the lack of new content combined with the DLC double-dip has the fighting game community frustrated. Koei Tecmo hasn't addressed the backlash or signaled any plans to reduce Mai and Kula's pricing.

Separately, a new Dead or Alive game is confirmed to be in development, though no details have been shared yet. For now, Last Round is leaving a sour first impression with the players it needed to win back.