Dragon Ball: The Breakers Is A Survival Game

If you had asked me what I thought the next Dragon Ball video game would be, I would have told you that my fingers were crossed (fully biased) for a sequel to Dragon Ball: FighterZ. I couldn’t see them making another story-based game after Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot (although DLC doesn’t seem out of the question), Dragon Ball Heroes continues to do its own thing, and a potential new entry in the Dragon Ball Xenoverse series seems less and less likely when the second game continues to receive support five years later. Aside from continuing one of the most popular fighting games in recent years, I had no idea what they might do next.

The absolute last thing I was expecting is an asymmetrical survival game pitting seven survivors against one raider, who is one of the memorable villains. This is a series that has built itself on huge fights consisting of martial arts and giant beams. Occasionally we do see characters teaming up, but the battle-loving nature of particular characters along with constant power-growing and evolving means the battles in the series are mostly symmetrical. Seven against one is not very typical, to say the least.

However, it seems that developer Dimps Corporation is taking a lot of inspiration from the introduction of the villain Cell in the original series. While many villains are all dastardly in their own way and capable of destroying planets on a whim, Cell’s introduction has remained a fan-favorite moment/series of episodes due to its horror tones. This is shown specifically in the trailer above as people run away from the predatory bug-android as he’s in the middle of his multiple town rampage. Of course, he is in the process of painfully sucking every citizen’s organic matter through his tail.

With no way for normal, untrained humans to defend themselves, it is quite a scary moment. That’s the general premise for the game, as you’ll be playing as seven ordinary citizens. Among these ordinary citizens shown are Bulma and Oolong in their attire and designs from the beginning of the series. The explanation for this is that the survivors are caught in a “temporal seam” along with the raider, who hails from another timeline.

If the timeline stuff is beginning to sound a bit like the Dragon Ball Xenoverse series, that’s no coincidence. A video message from the producer of the game, Ryosuke Hara, mentions that this game will be connected with Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. The weird time phenomenon also presents a smart way for the survivors to have to struggle on their own without the help of one of the Z Fighters.

To make the raiders even more of a threat, they’re meant to evolve over time. This is demonstrated with Cell transforming after capturing a survivor. Presumably, this will also apply to Frieza and Majin Buu, who both appear with Cell on the cover art. Once they reach their full power, it’s implied that they’ll be able to kill all the survivors with one attack.

The survivors will be able to defend themselves of course. Vehicles, weapons, and a progression path of potentially survivor-specific skills will be vital. Oolong envokes Prop Hunt memories with his ability to shapeshift into items for example. A “Dragon Change” move is also available, which channels the power from a Z Fighter. The official Dragon Ball website shows the Solar Flare and a Kamehameha being used. All of these are used to stall the raider as the survivors try to activate a Super Time Machine to escape.

Even after writing this article and watching the trailer a few times, I can’t believe what I’ve seen. I would have expected a Dragon Ball Z battle royale game to be made before an asymmetrical survival game, but the idea isn’t a bad one. I’ll be eyeing Bandai Namco’s webpage for any news on the game as well as its closed PC global beta. Dragon Ball: The Breakers is set to be released on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch when it launches in 2022.