Dead or Alive 6 respawns on Steam with $1,700 worth of DLC and players are NOT doing a victory pose

Dead or Alive 6 has pulled off a full respawn on Steam, and Koei Tecmo thought the best way to welcome players back was by immediately body-slamming them with 440 pieces of DLC totalling a jaw-dropping $1,700. Yes, you read that correctly. One thousand, seven hundred American dollars - enough to buy a decent PC to run the game on in the first place.

According to GamesRadar, the fighting game's return to the platform has been met with a devastating combo - 79% negative Steam reviews. That's not a rough launch, that's a full-on Ring Out. The community has basically grabbed the game by the ankles and thrown it clean out of the stage.

The DLC problem is... a lot

To put $1,700 of DLC into perspective: that's a PlayStation 5, an Xbox Series X, and still enough left over for a few months of Game Pass. The game itself might be reasonably priced, but the complete experience? That's a second mortgage situation. Koei Tecmo has long been notorious for their aggressive costume DLC strategy in the DOA franchise, but this re-release seems to have finally maxed out the community's patience bar.

Players flooding the reviews are essentially mashing the same button - frustration over the sheer volume of paid content attached to a game that's been off the platform. The negativity isn't exactly a surprise given the franchise's history with monetisation, but the timing and scale of this particular DLC dump has apparently triggered a combo the devs weren't ready to defend against.

A franchise in permanent juggle state

Dead or Alive as a series has always walked a tightrope between genuinely solid fighting mechanics and, let's say, "aggressively monetised" cosmetic content. DOA6 launched back in 2019 with a similar DLC controversy, so this is less of a new move and more of a loop combo the community has seen before - they're just finally punishing it properly.

Whether Koei Tecmo adjusts their approach or rides out the negative wave remains to be seen. But right now, on Steam's review board, Dead or Alive 6 is taking a beating that would make even the game's roster wince. The player base has clearly decided: $1,700 is the one hit KO nobody asked for.