Dead Or Alive 5: Ultimate To Be Free To Play

When a souped up version of Dead Or Alive 5 was first announced, many were left wondering what Team Ninja had in store. Specifically those who recently purchased a copy of the vanilla plain version, which came out not that long ago.

Extra characters was everyone's first guess, and that's definitely in the pipeline. But what else, to truly justify the Ultimate moniker? Again, to convince players to fork ever extra cash, for something they probably just paid full price for.

How about just a few bucks here and there? That's apparently the plan, because Dead Or Alive 5 Ultimate will be free to play.

Destructoid has the preliminary details: arguable the four most iconic and popular character (Kasumi, Ayane, Hayate, and Ryu) will be available up front, free of charge, with everyone else available as AI opponents initially. Online play will also be enabled for the base game, along with offline training.

Everything else, like the ability to control other characters, will need to unlocked via in-game purchases, per pretty much every other free to play game out there. Though Destructoid also notes that there will be trial periods for everyone, so you can try before you buy.

At the moment, it's only been announced for the PS3, but a Xbox 360 version might happen if talks with MS goes well.

There are many, primarily hardcore gamers, who are not at all fans with the free to play/freemium model, though even the most ardent critics will have to admit that one is getting a whole lot for free (the most popular characters, online play).

Though it remains to be seen if this new approach will help infuse life into the DOA franchise, which regular part 5 somewhat failed to do.