While it’s fun to fantasise about going toe-to-toe with some of Dragon Ball’s most powerful villains, the reality is that most of us mere mortals would probably only last a matter of minutes against them. This is the concept that Dragon Ball: The Breakers – an upcoming asymmetrical multiplayer game from Bandai Namco and Dimps – aims to experiment with.
Slated for a 2022 release on PC and consoles, Dragon Ball: The Breakers will feature 8-player online battles, with the teams split up into seven ‘Survivors’ and one ‘Raider’. While the Survivors will all be regular civilians trying to stay alive and escape an unexpected temporal phenomenon, the Raider will be one of the franchise’s most dangerous villains trying to eradicate all the Survivors before they can escape.
From the reveal trailer, we know that Freiza, Buu, and Cell will be amongst the playable Raider characters, who will use their devastating powers to eliminate all the Survivors to win. Those Survivors will be customisable civilian characters. Their abilities are severely limited compared to those of the Raider, but they will be given some tools to give themselves the best chance of staying alive and escaping through the Super Time Machine.
This will be the first Dragon Ball game to feature asymmetrical multiplayer in the vein of games like Dead by Daylight or Evolve. The decision to have everyday people (or pigs) from this universe as playable characters is an interesting new perspective, but the 7v1 multiplayer will need to be finely balanced in order for it to stick the landing.
Dragon Ball: The Breakers is expected to release in 2022 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, and will be compatible for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Are you excited for Dragon Ball: The Breakers? Do you think asymmetrical multiplayer is a good direction for the series? Let us know in the comments or on social media!
