Dragon Ball: The Breakers sounds just bizarre enough to work

Dragon Ball: The Breakers sounds only bizarre plenty to work

(Prototype credit: Bandai Namco)

Dragon Ball: The Breakers doesn't audio like a typical game for the franchise. While most Dragon Ball games involve fighting, improving your abilities, and exploring outlandish locations — simply similar the Goggle box shows — The Breakers focuses instead on running and hiding. That may non sound like much of a pitch, but the trailer makes a pretty convincing pitch for the concept. The fact is that Dragon Ball has a huge universe on offer, and it's strange that game developers take been content to confine it to ii or three well-worn genres.

Bandai Namco announced Dragon Ball: The Breakers today (Nov. xvi) with a teaser trailer on its official YouTube aqueduct. We've embedded it below, in case you haven't seen it yet:

Dragon Ball: The Breakers is an asymmetrical action game, where 7 players cooperate to survive against a single player-controlled antagonist. The villainous actor volition take control of perennial DBZ foes Frieza, Cell or Majin Buu, while the survivors volition be everyday people.

Unlike nigh DB heroes, the survivors in this game don't have the ability to fight dorsum against the evil conquerors. Bandai Namco explains that instead, they "must rely on diverse power-upwardly items, weapons, and pilotable vehicles to battle and evade the Raider while searching for the Super Fourth dimension Auto to escape oblivion." The game doesn't accept a set release engagement yet, but Bandai Namco has promised a closed beta "soon."

In other words: 7 players need to evade 1 superpowered monster, who grows more than powerful as the match progresses. It'south a fleck reminiscent of the sick-fated Evolve, although maybe Expressionless by Daylight is a more apt comparison.

Bandai Namco revealed a few more details about The Breakers, such as how players volition be able to customize their ain survivors and purchase corrective skins (nosotros saw series regulars Bulma and Oolong in the trailer). They'll also be able to carry data over between The Breakers and Dragon Ball Xenoverse ii, although information technology's non exactly clear how the 2 games will tie together.

What's more than interesting about The Breakers, however, is simply that we've never seen anything like it in a Dragon Brawl video game before. A survival/horror multiplayer game doesn't exactly scream "Dragon Ball," merely perhaps that's why it's then timely. We've already taken control of Goku and defeated his enemies dozens of times. Nosotros've created our own avatars and honed our fighting skills; we've competed in endless fighting tournaments; we've even battled it out with trading cards at to the lowest degree three times.

Dragon Ball: The Breakers will explore what the DB setting looks similar from the perspective of an ordinary person. Without its key power fantasy, it will exist fascinating to come across what the globe looks like. If the game turns out to be proficient, so much the amend — and if it inspires Bandai Namco to take even more unusual risks with the license, then it will really have accomplished something special.

Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and applied science. After hours, you can notice him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.