Dead or Alive 6’s Season Pass 1 is more expensive than the game. Wut?

Dead or Alive 6 just came out today and if you’re one of those who bought it, you might not be surprised to learn that there’s a Season Pass all ready to go to complement the game. It’s routine, expected even. Especially seeing as how Dead or Alive 5: Last Round was.

What’s surprising is that Koei Tecmo is continuing the practice of creating MULTIPLE Season Passes. Even more surprising is the price, as Season Pass 1 is SGD$120.40. There’s no typo; it really is more expensive than even the Deluxe Edition of Dead or Alive 6.

For that amount, you get 62 costumes and 2 new characters, all coming in the period between March and June 2019.

Let’s do a breakdown to see what you’re paying for the costumes.

Nyotengu, one of the ala carte DLC characters, costs SGD$5.25. Going by that, the 2 characters included in the DLC pass (Mai Shiranui from King of Fighters and another unannounced combatant) total up to just SGD$10.50. That leaves us with SGD$109.90 for 62 costumes or about SGD$1.78 per costume.

It might seem rather cheap but we’ve yet to see how elaborate the costumes are. For all we know, most of them could just be recolors of existing threads or similar looking ones that can easily be ported to different characters.

It’s a sad state of affairs to see the series being milked for all its worth this way. Sure, continued support is awesome but look at other fighters like SoulCalibur 6 or Tekken 7 or Street Fighter V; none have Season Passes that come close to the pricing of Dead or Alive 6’s.

I honestly thought that Dead or Alive 5: Last Round was a great fighter, but it supremely ticked me off that getting all the extra costumes (from the numerous Season Passes) was exorbitantly expensive. It seems like the trend’s continuing with Dead or Alive 6.

Even more disappointing, this is just the first in a line of Season Passes. You’re spending that much, and you’re not even getting EVERYTHING the game will offer. I know games are evolving to be more of a service than a stagnant experience, but there needs to be line in the sand on what’s expected from pricing.

Sadly, as long as there are gamers (and I personally know a few) who are willing to shell out the money, this practice looks set to stay for the foreseeable future.

Luckily, for those of us who just want to play the game, there’ll be a Dead or Alive 6: Core Fighters version, though there’s no word yet when it’s coming.