Dead or Alive 5 Last Round drops Soft Engine and extra levels on the PC

Dead or Alive 5 Last Round

Dead or Alive fans are taking to NeoGAF to express concerns about the state of the upcoming Dead or Alive 5 Last Round, which will arrive on Steam at the end of the month. A NeoGAF user's translation of the Japanese site Gamecity states that the PC port of the game will not make use of the Soft Engine that powers the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions, yet it will also have more demanding system requirements than currently listed on Steam.

To be fair, the Steam system requirements are very vague—an Intel Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM, and Windows 7 64-bit—but the Gamecity site indicates that a Core i7 2600 will actually be required to run the game at 1080p. The GeForce GTX 760, 660, or 750Ti are the recommended video cards, and according to IncGamers, the RAM requirement is now "more than 4GB."

But while the requirements have gone up, capabilities appear to have gone down. The Soft Engine, which as Silconera explained last year, makes skin appear more natural, has been dropped, and the PC version will be stuck with PS3-style particle effects as well. The two extra stages added for the next-gen console releases have also been cut.

On the upside, the game will support 4K resolution and PS4 shadow effects, but any lingering hope that online play will be ready in time for release or shortly thereafter has been snuffed: The post confirms that, as previously stated, it won't be added until roughly three months after launch.

Dead or Alive 5: Last Round comes to the PC on March 30.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.