In the teaser, we get to see two of the iconic Dead or Alive characters duking it out—Kasumi and Ryu Hayabusa. Eagle-eyed viewers will also notice that Ryu is making use of his updated design as we last saw in October’s Ninja Gaiden 4.

The Dead or Alive series has been dormant for quite some time, with the last release—Dead or Alive 6—having happened back in 2019. The series started its life as an arcade game back in 1996 before eventually making its way to PlayStation and Sega Saturn. While Dead or Alive 3 and 4 were initially only released on Xbox and Xbox 360 respectively, future games would get wider releases, with Dead or Alive 5 coming to PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2012.

The fighting game series has traditionally been developed by Team Ninja of Ninja Gaiden fame, and gameplay has largely focused on hand-to-hand combat, with each character making use of their own unique styles of martial arts. The overarching story has revolved around the Dead or Alive World Combat Championship, an international martial arts tournament that attracts the best fighters from all over the world.

Recently, Team Ninja’s Hiroaki Morita took to Twitter and revealed that following the launch of Dead or Alive 6, a small team at the studio was focused on releasing small updates for the game, as well as on the development of Dead or Alive 7. The latter, however, ultimately got cancelled when Yohei Shinbori, a key member of the series’ creative team, retired. Morita has since then made his Twitter account private, but you can check out a cached version of the relevant tweet through here (via Wcctech).

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily indicate that there are no plans to go back to the fighting series for Team Ninja – projects getting scrapped and then eventually picked backup again isn’t the most uncommon thing in game development – but at the very least, it’s clear that the wait for Dead or Alive 7 is going to be longer than what it could have been if things had panned out differently. Then again, the gaps between new instalments in the series have often stretched out quite a bit, so series fans won’t be too surprised here.

Currently, it’s known that Team Ninja is working on a new action game based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but whether the studio also has additional projects in the works is unknown.