Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 preview: RPG puts a Super Saiyan twist on God of War

The latest Dragon Ball RPG features some larger-than-life brawls

Believe it or not, it’s been a full decade since the release of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. We’ve gotten plenty of great Dragon Ball games in that time, but none that scratch the exact itch as the Xenoverse series’ MMO-like elements. That will change next year with the long-awaited Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3, and it doesn’t look like developer Dimps is messing with the formula too much.

At this year’s Summer Game Fest, Polygon saw a live gameplay demo of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 in action. The 30-minute hands-off demo gave us a look at some familiar brawling, and offered our first look at its Age 1000 setting. All you really need to know is that you can go Super Saiyan on Broly and give the guy an aerial beating of a lifetime. What more can you ask for in a Dragon Ball game?

Set around 250 years after the previous game, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 takes players to West City. It’s a futuristic metropolis full of characters from the anime series. At one point, I caught Vegeta casually hanging out in the lobby of a building. Your base of operations in the city is a cluttered bedroom, which Bandai Namco teases that you’ll be able to clean up and customize throughout the game. I didn’t see too much beyond that hub space, but I did get one look at the outside world when the demoist ventured onto the streets to start a mission.

You take on the role of a player-created character, and you can choose from a few races to build on. The demo I saw mostly featured an Earthling character, though I saw a quick peek at a Saiyan too. (The latter can go Super Saiyan 3 in battle.) Bandai Namco confirmed that there will be more races in the final game. You’ll be able to customize characters with currency you earn from missions, and set emotes. No surprises there.

Rather than showing me much of the city, my demo was largely a combat showcase. The demo went through a linear mission in an icy level full of enemies to pummel. The fundamentals of battle won’t shock you. Players can fly and boost, hitting enemies with light and heavy attacks. Aerial combat is the name of the game, as you air juggle foes within an inch of their lives. You’re also trying to break an enemy’s Ki while guarding to recharge your own. Super Attacks return, which can be executed by holding R2 and pressing a face button, as do Ultimates. I watched the Earthling pull off a perfectly respectable Kamehameha.

While most of what I saw was business as usual, there are some new twists. The first are Soul Assists, new attacks where you summon a character from the series to perform superpowered moves. I saw Vegeta and Trunks both tapped in as Assists. Bandai Namco teased that there will be more, though it didn’t confirm how you’ll recruit characters. (I assume it might tie back to seeing them hanging out around the city.)

The other new feature is Soul Switch, which is a bit like a mix of Sparking Zero’s Sparking Mode and God of War’s Spartan Rage. It’s a maneuver that makes your character go Super for a short time, refilling their health in the process. It’s like hitting the emergency button when a fight is going bad. If you do happen to die, players can still revive one another by hovering near a downed body.

All of these systems came together in the mission’s climactic boss fight against Super Broly. It was a long, intense battle where the Earthling had to hide behind giant icicles to dodge attacks. Aside from that environmental element, the battle was mostly the flashy boxing match you’d expect from a Dragon Ball game. Fists flew, and death beams shot out until the damage-sponge Broly went down.

None of this should sound very new if you played Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2. Despite the 10-year gap, it seems like Bandai Namco is content to play it safe with a sequel that picks up where the last game left off. The real meat seems like it will be in the Age 1000 setting, which opens the door for new storytelling potential in the Dragon Ball universe. The jury’s out on whether those stories will be more meaningful than “beat up a guy in a round arena,” but at least beating up a guy in a round arena still looks like fun.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 will launch for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X in 2027.