Dead or Alive 2 (Japanese: デッドオアアライブ2, Hepburn: Deddo oa Araibu To~ū, abbreviated as DOA2) is a 1999 fighting game developed by Team Ninja and published by Tecmo.

Dead or Alive 2 received universal acclaim, strong sales, and is considered one of the greatest fighting games of all time.

In DOA2, fights can occur on either water or ice; when a character is on such a surface, all non-knockdown, non-launching attacks will induce a stun on any successful hit.

Other notable features included introducing CG cutscenes in line with the plot, replacing the original "Danger Zone" areas in stages with fully interactive ones, allowing players to juggle each other into walls, propelling characters from landmarks for more damage, and upon completing the game, presenting the player with (sometimes ambiguous) endings for each character using the game's standard engine.

The promoter of the second Dead or Alive Championship, who is fond of conflicts and jealous of the strong, is responsible for Douglas's death.

His involvement in the tournament began to bring a sense of terror to the world, resulting in the infamous tengu disaster.

Kasumi's brother Hayate, previously injured by Raidou, was also captured and was unwillingly used as a subject of DOATEC's bio-weapon experiment, Epsilon.

Ryu Hayabusa (from Ninja Gaiden) enters the tournament vowing to seek and destroy the evil tengu.

Wanting to emulate gorgeous scenes of martial arts movies, Tomonobu Itagaki and Team Ninja went so far to invite professional martial artists to perform motion capture, making the characters' moves smoother, and developed multi-tired stages where opponents can be knocked off edges of landmarks down to lower levels where the fight continues.

Dead or Alive 2 featured the song "Exciter" by punk band, Bomb Factory, in its opening sequence.

Team Ninja immediately started working on the console version as Tecmo planned to be listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in March 2000.

At the end of this, one of Itagaki's managers tricked him into releasing the game by asking to borrow a copy to play, but instead sent it to a production factory.

Itagaki was upset by not being able to finish the game on his own terms and fell into a depression during which he briefly considered quitting the industry.

[11] This version was based on the Japanese second update of Dead or Alive 2 for the Dreamcast and featured new playable characters, new stages, extra costumes and introduced the "Gallery" option.

The Hardcore release was finally the complete game Itagaki had envisioned at the time, featuring many changes compared to its predecessor: characters, pictures and moves were altered to appear more realistic, lessening the anime-look.

A special "Items Collection" feature and menu section was added to appeal to video game collectors.

[13] On August 22, 2012, a software emulated version of DOA2: Hard*Core was made available as a downloadable game on the Japanese PlayStation Network.

Gorgeous graphics, excellent gameplay, and some beautiful characters put this square in the running against Namco's Soul Calibur as the best Dreamcast fighting game.

"[34] Jeff Lundrigan of Next Generation also rated it 5 stars out of 5, and stated that "This is a tremendous game and a must-have, but if you can choose between the two versions, PS2 enjoys an edge thanks to all the extras – just get used to squinting at the too-bright lights and nasty jaggies.

"[35] James Mielke of GameSpot scored it a 9.7 out of 10, giving praise to the gameplay, beautiful animation and environments, calling Dead or Alive 2 "the hardest hitting game in town" and "a must, must buy".

Mielke called the fast combat the best thing about Dead or Alive 2, also praising the game's Tag Battle mode and stating how "no other 3D (or even 2D) fighter matches DOA2 for sheer intensity and speed.

"[47] David Smith of IGN gave it an 8.7 out of 10, calling DOA2: Hardcore "the best version around", stating how he always preferred Dead or Alive's speed, balance, character design, and levels, even if Tekken may be the majority choice.

[33] Gamespot scored it 8.9 out of 10, saying how the game "looks simply amazing", and that "the animation is smooth, but the character models are what really stand out".

"[48] GameSpy states how DoA2: Hardcore's innovative style of play, coupled with blazing fast graphics makes it a title to own.

Vargas of PSX Nation gave it an 8 out of 10, stating that DOA2: Hardcore "takes better advantage of the PS2 than Tekken Tag Tournament, IMHO, with incredible physics, realistic fighters and fast action not seen in any other modern brawler".

The way the intensity of the action triples when knocking opponents off of edges such as cliffs or out of windows, then leaping down after them and continue fighting down below made the experience feel very rewarding.

"[52] In 2010, UGO.com ranked it as the ninth top fighting game of all time, "perhaps most important for introducing Itagaki's famous breast physics engine.

"[53] In 2020, TheGamer ranked DOA2: Hardcore "2nd best launch game for the PS2", calling the combat "lightning fast, and easy to pick up with counters and reversals that work better than any other fighter", also stating how the character animations are "smooth and fluid and move around the 3D space more naturally than similar titles like Soul Calibur", and stating that it visually "looked a generation ahead of games like Tekken Tag Tournament and Street Fighter EX3.

The action of 3D-axis movement is as free-formatted as DOA3, and Hitomi, as well as Tengu are now playable characters (albeit outside story mode), but other elements have been kept intact from DOA2.

The biggest set of changes instituted in Dead or Alive Ultimate are online play over Xbox Live and the inclusion of slopes, which are a type of environmental hazard.