Tecmo’s taken the free-to-play plunge with one of its best-known series, relaunching Dead or Alive 5 Final Round: Core Fighters as a free-to-play fighting game on the Xbox 360. Yes, I said/typed that entire title with one breath.
DOA5LRCF launched in February as a paid title with a free trial that limited players to four characters: Ayane, Hayate, Kasumi, and Ryu Hayabusa — but no way to unlock additional features without a full purchase. The fully F2P version starts players off with those four characters and lets players purchase over 30 more, along with new outfits, all of which can be purchased individually or in bundles, and you can still purchase the full game to unlock all fighters.
Online PvP play is enabled by default, but you’ll have to pay to unlock the single-player story mode. There’s also a fee mentioned for unspecified “other features”; this being a Dead or Alive game, we wouldn’t be too surprised to see a paywall for boob physics.
