Recently, Bandai Namco announced the next console Dragon Ball video game. Dragon Ball: The Breakers will be coming to PC and consoles in 2022, and it's not going to be the usual Dragon Ball fare. The Dragon Ball franchise has long been associated with fighting games. Many have come out over the years with varying quality and reputation amongst fans, but recently Bandai struck gold with Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 and Dragon Ball FighterZ. Both games have sold over 8 million copies, one because it's a comprehensive Dragon Ball simulator and the other because it's the best fighting game Dragon Ball Z has ever had. It makes sense to deviate from the genre now as those are hard to top.

Dragon Ball is no stranger to trying different genres, either. The series has a surprisingly long history of RPGs and action-RPGs, the most recent of which was Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot. Adaptations of Goku's journeys are very popular, and the format allows for lots of non-canon content to be worked in as well. Dragon Ball has tackled a ton of genres over its history, but The Breakers looks to be taking the franchise in an entirely new direction with an experimental genre that has been slowly growing over the past few years.

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What is Dragon Ball: The Breakers?

asymmetrical multiplayer game Bandai Namco Cell Frieza Buu

Dragon Ball: The Breakers is an asymmetric multiplayer game with a setup similar to Dead by Daylight and the Friday the 13th game. Up to seven players will take the role of Survivors, normal citizens of the Dragon Ball universe who have been sucked into the Temporal Seam and must try to escape. The eighth player takes the role of a Raider, appearing as either Cell, Buu, or Frieza to wreak havoc on Survivors and their attempts to escape. Raiders grow stronger over time, so Survivors need to gear up and move efficiently. A power imbalance of this severity has not been seen in any Dragon Ball game before this, and The Breakers is built around it.

In their quest to escape the Temporal Seam and the efforts of one of Dragon Ball's powerful arc villains, the Survivors need to team up and use everything at their disposal to win. A Super Time Machine lies on the playing field, and Survivors need to get it working and climb on to it to escape and win the match. To do this, they will have to use vehicles, weapons, tools, and weapons around the map to get an edge and complete objectives. Dragon Ball Z’s typical focus on combat and high-flying mobility has not gone away, as it appears that developer Dimps is bringing the feel of its Xenoverse games to this new title. Still, a Survivor player does not want to fight a Raider head-on when they can avoid it.

How Dragon Ball: The Breakers Differentiates Itself

dragon ball xenoverse 2 screenshot

Everything about Dragon Ball: The Breakers is radically different from other Dragon Ball games, and even most Dragon Ball media. The focus on escape and a feeling of helplessness in the face of an otherworldly foe is not something the Dragon Ball series has given much of a spotlight. Sure, there are plenty of times when outmatched fighters try to buy time for a more capable ally to arrive, but untrained civilians don't get involved in major fights. It's going to be interesting to see how this game is balanced when its closed beta test comes out, and what tools and powers both sides are allowed to use.

Dragon Ball: The Breakers is probably an experiment by Bandai Namco to see if its Shonen Jump properties could be used in an asymmetric multiplayer context. Even amongst the wider context of anime games, there's nothing this focused on asymmetric goals. The closest examples would probably be players being able to control raid bosses in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, and that still takes the form of a fight. Even though this is likely trend-chasing on Bandai’s part, it’s still a breath of fresh air in the anime game space. Hopefully, Dragon Ball: The Breakers will be a successful trial for alternative adaptations of popular properties, and fans can see a more diverse output of licensed games in the future.

Dragon Ball: The Breakers will launch in 2022 for PC, PlayStation 4, Switch, and Xbox One.

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