Tecmo Koei Announces Dead Or Alive 5 For 2012

Team Ninja will continue its well-known fighting game franchise next year with Dead or Alive 5, coming some six years after the previous entry in the series. The game was announced in Japan this morning as part of a press conference by publisher Tecmo Koei tied to this week's Tokyo Game Show. The game will be released for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 next year, according to the company. Dead or Alive is a 3D fighting game franchise dating back to an arcade game from 1996. The previous game in the series, Dead or Alive 4, was released in 2005 around the launch of the Xbox 360. Dead or Alive 5 will be the first game in the main series made without involvement by outspoken series creator Tomonobu Itagaki, who resigned from Tecmo in 2008. Itagaki's new company, Valhalla Game Studios, is set to release its debut game Devil's Third in 2013. For more on what Itagaki's been up to, refer to this Gamasutra interview from earlier this year.