Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot announced its final DLC recently, and it will be a foray into the origin story of Future Trunks and his battle with the Androids. Many fans were expecting to see DLC that would bring the game into the newer storylines, adding Dragon Ball Super to Kakarot's overall storyline. Now that this is clearly not happening, it stands to reason that there may be separate games to explore the stories of Dragon Ball Super and Dragon Ball GT.
Since the continuation of the classic anime started several years ago, Dragon Ball Super hasn't received all that much attention in the gaming world. Fast-paced brawler Dragon Ball FighterZ has really been the place to see content from DBS and DBGT. On the other hand, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is a story-focused and RPG-styled adventure game that focuses on Goku. Now that its latest DLC has been announced and will stay in the DBZ timeline, it seems more and more likely that Bandai Namco will likely release a separate game rather than add more DLC to continue Goku's journey into the events of Dragon Ball Super.
How Likely is a Dragon Ball Super Game?
Bandai Namco is no stranger to releasing multiple Dragon Ball titles in short windows. The franchise's popularity is as high as ever and hosts a slew of fighting, mobile, card, and RPGs over the years. So making a new version of Kakarot in order to expand the story either into Dragon Ball Super or GT isn't outside the realm of possibility. It could work well for a number of reasons. GT and DBS are each their own beasts, and each is somewhat controversial amongst fans. Creating separate games for the other periods of Dragon Ball could make sense as ways to continue each story in its own space for the fans who enjoy that specific series most.
This approach would also work well for the original Dragon Ball plotlines, as the gameplay of Kakarot would fit the less powerful but still engaging battles of the original arcs. Creating a separate game for each set of plotlines opens the door for mechanics unique to each game based on some overarching theme of DBS or DBGT, and for Bandai Namco to capitalize by expanding the main stories with DLC. This strategy would likely irk some fans, but plenty others would appreciate a dedicated game to their favorite part of Dragon Ball that isn't DBZ being rehashed in a video game yet again.
Since it's become clear that Kakarot won't be following FighterZ's lead by including content from GT or DBS, the likelihood of a new game coming seems high. But if implemented properly, Bandai Namco has an opportunity to cater to fans of plotlines outside of the most popular series. Creating new Kakarot-style games for the original Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball GT, and Dragon Ball Super could help it to create a long-term plan for the future of the Dragon Ball video game world going into next-gen gaming.
Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot's next DLC is set to release later this year.