Microsoft's Major Nelson has accidentally announced the next DLC character coming to Dragon Ball FighterZ will be Janemba from Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn.

With Kid Goku GT released earlier this week, thoughts had turned to who the fourth and final DLC character might be. But while Bandai Namco had yet to confirm any details, Xbox's Director of Programming, Larry Hryb, seemingly let the secret slip during the latest installment of his This Week on Xbox show (jump to 3.10).

As EventHubs (thanks, Eurogamer) notes, nowhere had Bandai nor developer Arc System Works confirmed that the antagonist from Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn was coming to the game, so a casual mention of a Janemba "skin" immediately caught the attention of the Dragon Ball FighterZ community.

After the gaff, the video description of the video was amended to clarify that "the latest update pack will include: Goku GT (playable character), one new Lobby Avatar, and one new Z Stamp", and even the official Xbox Twitter account poked a little fun.

"Apparently Xbox just leaked Janemba for Dragon Ball FighterZ," teased a comment on Twitter, to which Xbox replied (emphasis ours): "Apparently Xbox just announced Janemba for Dragon Ball FighterZ. FTFY."

In our Dragon Ball FighterZ review we gave it 83, stating that "not only is Dragon Ball FighterZ comfortably the best game this licence has ever produced, it’s a cracking fighting game, too."

Bandai Namco has announced a new Dragon Ball Z action RPG. The publisher isn’t giving up much beyond its existence, suggesting that the project is just beginning this year. We’ll find out more at the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour finals later this month. On the subject of Dragon Ball FighterZ, it’s getting a new character, also to be announced at the finals.

It’s been quarter of a century since I last watched an episode of Dragon Ball Z, I confess, but people who know better than I tell me that ‘The Warrior from Universe 11’ likely refers to Jiren. Who’s Jiren, you ask? It’s this guy of course!

He’s a member of the Pride Troopers, apparently, and looks like what you’d get if you pumped one of those scrawny grey aliens full of steroids. His entry on the DBZ wiki makes him sound like possibly the dullest guy in all the universes. 

Jiren is very stoic and serious about most matters. This was shown when he did not perform a pose like his teammates. Jiren also appears to be a quiet person, as speaks very rarely more than necessary. He is very brave and disciplined, remaining unfazed by practically anything. Even more, he is a very focused and observant man, constantly watching and studying his environment to better prepare for any new threat.

He’s pretty tough, however, and I guess that’s more important than charisma in a game about punching. 

Despite knowing next to nothing about Dragon Ball Z, FighterZ does look right up my street, full of spectacle and punches that can destroy galaxies. Check out Nathan Brown’s Dragon Ball FighterZ review if you’re in the mood for flashy anime brawls.

The 2018 Evolution Championship Series, better known as Evo 2018, went down this weekend, pitting the best of the fighting game community against one another in mano a mano combat across eight games: Street Fighter 5, Tekken 7, Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2, Injustice 2, Super Mash Bros. Melee, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle. When the dust cleared, this is who was left standing:

Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition 

• 1st - Problem X - Benjamin Simon
• 2nd - Tokido - Hajime Taniguchi
• 3rd - Fuudo - Kenta Ai
• 4th - Gachikun - Kanamori Tsunehiro
• 5th - Fujimura - Fujimura Atsushi
• 5th - Luffy - Olivier Hay
• 7th - THE COOL KID93 - Marcus Redmond
• 7th - Caba - Cristhopher Rodriguez Nade 

Street Fighter's grand finals were once again the capstone event, and last year's champion, Japanese veteran Tokido, nearly took the title again. Another Japanese veteran, Fuudo, sent Tokido to the loser's bracket, but Tokido battled his way back and made it to the grand final, where he reset the bracket in a real nail biter. But Problem X's M. Bison was too strong, and he became the first UK Street Fighter Evo champion.

Dragon Ball FighterZ

• 1st - SonicFox - Dominique McLean
• 2nd - GO1 - Goichi Kishida
• 3rd - Fenritti - Shoji Sho
• 4th - Moke - Naoki Nakayama
• 5th - KnowKami - Perry Vinson
• 5th - Kazunoko - Ryota Inoue
• 7th - Kubo - Tsutomu Kubota
• 7th - Supernoon - Steve Carbajal

DBFZ set a viewership record for EVO and provided a slightly controversial, dramatic finish, as SonicFox asked to switch from P2 to P1 between matches. Some called it a delaying tactic to put the red-hot Goichi off his game, and SonicFox did turn things around to win in a dominant pair of final rounds.

Tekken 7

• 1st - LowHigh - Sun-woong Yoon
• 2nd - Qudans - Byung-moon Son
• 3rd - Lil Majin - Terrelle Jackson
• 4th - JDCR - HyunJin Kim
• 5th - Book - Nopparut Hempamorn
• 5th - Rangchu - Hyunho Jung
• 7th - Noroma - Takumi Hamasaki
• 7th - Chirichiri - Takumi Hamasaki

Super Smash Bros. Melee

• 1st - Leffen - William Hjelte
• 2nd - Armada - Adam Lindgren
• 3rd - Plup - Justin McGrath
• 4th - Hungrybox - Juan DeBiedma
• 5th - Wizzrobe - Justin Hallett
• 5th - Mang0 - Joseph Marquez
• 7th - Swedish Delight - James Liu
• 7th - S2J - Johnny Kim

Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2

• 1st - Omito - Omito Hashimoto
• 2nd - Machabo - Masahiro Tominaga
• 3rd - LostSoul - Eli Rabadad
• 4th - Nage
• 5th - Rion - Hisatoshi Usui
• 5th - Zadi
• 7th - Teresa - Fukuda Norihiro
• 7th - Fumo - Harukuni Suga

 BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle

• 1st - Heiho
• 2nd - Fame96 - Jerome Latham
• 3rd - DoraBang - Ryuji Utsumi
• 4th - kojiKOG - Kazuyuki Koji
• 5th - Kazunoko - Ryota Inoue
• 5th - Fenritti - Shoji Sho
• 7th - Gouda
• 7th - DettyWhiteRock - Kohki Hayashi

Injustice 2

• 1st - Rewind - Curtis McCall
• 2nd - Tweedy - Tommy Tweedy
• 3rd - SonicFox - Dominique McLean
• 4th - Big D - Ryan DeDomenico
• 5th - Hayatei - Alexandre Dube-Bilodeau
• 5th - Semiij - Andrew Fontanez
• 7th - SylverRye - Mo Amaechi
• 7th - Biohazard - Matthews Commandeur

Super Smash Bros. for Wii U

• 1st - Lima - Bharat Chintapall
• 2nd - CaptainZack - Zack Lauth
• 3rd - Nietono - Yuta Uejima
• 4th - Mistake - Tamim Omary
• 5th - Mr E - Eric Weber
• 5th - MVD - Jestise Negron
• 7th - Raito - Tetsuya Ishiguro
• 7th - Choco - Toshimasa Hayakawa

Street Fighter 5 action put up big numbers on the opening days of the tournament, according to this GitHyp report, but Dragon Ball FighterZ ultimately took the viewership crown, hitting nearly 258,000 concurrent viewers at one point, the highest viewership count of all time for an Evo main event on Twitch.  

And like all good sporting events, there was a spot of controversy as well. Kotaku reported that the audience booed players who opted to use the Bayonetta character in the Super Smash Bros. for Wii U competition because it's viewed by many as having an unfair advantage over others. It got bad enough that a pre-finals match between CaptainZack and eventual 7th-place finisher Raito ended with a victorious CaptainZack flipping off the entire crowd as he walked off the stage; the announcers said they didn't condone his action, but acknowledged that the behavior of the audience was in "such bad taste" that it wasn't entirely unjustified. In the final match, Lima and CaptainZack, who were both playing with Bayonetta, simply stopped playing at one point, until Evo staff compelled them to keep fighting. 

The latest update to Dragon Ball FighterZ added two new game modes: a co-op Party Battle and FighterZ Cup, a monthly contest in which players fight to earn points for their Z-Union. Party Battle will introduce a series of time-limited modes to fight through, the first of which—called The Emperor Strikes Back—is now live.

As producer Tomoko Hiroki explains in the video above, you team up with two allies to take down "an army of strong enemies". You can set up your party to be private and invite your friends or match up with other online players. After that, you set how many fights you're aiming to win in a row and jump in. The game tracks how many enemies have been defeated globally, the idea being that you're co-operating with everyone that's playing, and not just the two others in your party. 

The Emperor Strikes back will focus on Frieza, the former emperor of the universe and one of series' most iconic enemies. He'll show up often in your battles, so keep an eye out.

This first version of Party Battle is a test of the mode, so Bandai Namco want as many people to take part as possible before it ends on Tuesday morning. It's live right now.

If you're curious about the game but have never played it, then Nathan's review is here.

Dragon Ball FighterZ has been out for a couple of weeks now, but problems continue to plague the online multiplayer components. Publisher Bandai Namco want us to know they're working to address the issues. 

In a video, FighterZ producer Tomoko Hiroki said, "We've heard all of your feedbacks since the release, and we're fully aware of the online issues that you're having, such as the matching in "Ring Match" or being disconnected from the lobby. We're aware of the situation, and keen to resolve them with all our might."

While Hiroki didn't specify what the team intends to do to address the issues, the producer said that the the first patch will be released towards the end of February, with further patches planned for next month, too.

"Please bear in mind that this first patch might not fix everything at once," Hiroki added. "Therefore, we're also planning to release another patch in mid and late March to gradually resolve the issue. Rest assured that we will not stop until the fix has been completed."

In our Dragon Ball FighterZ review, we gave it 83, stating: "If only the online component had launched in a slightly better state: network conditions are spotty at best, and you’ll frequently be kicked out of the online lobbies you’re automatically loaded in to when you boot up the game (yes, even if you want to play single-player modes). 

"No doubt it will be fixed—these things usually are, and perhaps Namco were caught on the hop by the game’s success (it is already the most popular fighting game in Steam's history). But it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. "

Although Bandai have yet to date the upcoming DLC, the publisher recently revealed the first two DLC characters for fighting game Dragon Ball FighterZ will be Goku's father Bardock and Goku's sworn enemy, Broly.

Arc System Works just had its biggest success ever with Dragon Ball FighterZ on PC, a collaboration with Namco Bandai that set the record for the most concurrent fighting game players on PC ever. The upcoming BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle, landing in June, will be Arc's next attempt to pull in new players who've always been intimidated by the complexity of fighting games, with a simplified control scheme and crossover characters from Persona 4 and Rooster Teeth's RWBY.

I managed to win a match against BlazBlue director Toshimichi Mori, so it's definitely beginner friendly. After a few rounds, I talked with Mori and Guilty Gear creator Daisuke Ishiwatari about where the depth will come from in a tag fighter with simplified inputs and combos, what it's like for Arc System Works to develop games on PC, and, most importantly, why none of the shirtless, beefcake anime dudes in BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle have nipples.

Wes: I was just starting playing Cross Tag Battle, but it's hard for me to know where the depth will be. I'm curious where the hardcore Arc System Works fans will find the competitive depth and longevity for this game, compared to previous BlazBlue games?

Mori: I think a lot of that will come down to the character combinations. There are a variety of toolkits the players will have access to, depending on which characters they combine with who. One thing we were very careful with is 'if I have this one character on my team I can win.' We didn't want any one character to stick out above the others.

A large concept for the game is to take people from the sidelines of fighting games who are interested in it but have always just spectated because they felt the barrier to entry was too high, or the execution barrier was too much for them, so that the moment you pick up the controller you're able to execute some pretty flashy moves. And the more you dig, the more you discover 'oh wow, this is cool, I can do this.' That's the feeling we wanted to entice in people.

Of course, we are aware that very cartoony, anime-looking visuals like this is considered a niche in the videogame world, but even then, if there's any point at which people might find interest in this game, the fighting, the characters, whatever it is, we want to make this a platform where they can come and play and enjoy it.

We're putting a lot of effort into the network and online modes as well, so we just want this to be, again, a platform where people can interact with each other and build a community around the idea of a fighting game.

That is, again, a large reason why we forced Arc System Works America, so we can start to communicate more directly with our fans and communities, help the communities grow, give them what they need, and listen to their feedback. From there it should trickle onward. Previously I think Japan and Asia had a huge advantage in competitiveness and just information. We want everyone to stand at the same starting line.

Wes: For making the game more approachable to new players, has that affected your training or tutorial modes at all?

Mori: There is of course a tutorial mode that will walk people through the basics of the systems in fighting games, but again going back to it, if you just mash some buttons you'll be able to do something. There's something for everyone here.

A lot of tutorial modes will walk you through all the systems, the complex mechanics, and I don't want any fans to feel like 'oh, I can't enjoy this game unless I master all of these.' I expect some people to not even go into the tutorial, to just dive right into brawling with each other, which is the intent.

Wes: I have kind of a weird question. Where are the guys' nipples? Even Mario has nipples now.

Mori: I heard that overseas it wouldn't be too well received, so we intentionally abstracted that [laughs]. I think in the US and Europe it's more acceptable, but in Asia it's not really… so we kind of fudged it, a little bit. I thought it was totally acceptable to have some form of expression of that. I guess that's cultural.

Wes: It just stuck out to me because last year there were all these jokes about Mario in Mario Odyssey having nipples. Everyone thought it was funny.

Mori: For the record, I am of the school of thought that it's acceptable as a form of expression, but I noticed whenever they'd take some of the artwork that I do with the nipples, in Asia it gets erased. 

Ishiwatari: Capcom characters don't have it, either.

Mori: It's a very tedious process to either draw it or not draw it, depending on which region the assets are going to go to, so we just decided to keep it universal.

Wes: How much does Arc System Works share personnel between teams, and technology between BlazBlue and Guilty Gear and Dragon Ball FighterZ, and all your different games?

Ishiwatari: In terms of Dragon Ball FighterZ, that was more of an exception where the lead artist from Guilty Gear was kind of placed at the helm of overseeing many elements of that project. For more games that are developed internally at Arc System Works, exclusively, the game designers talk to each other, so they work really close to each other. Usually at the first stage of any game development, for example, the game designer of Guilty Gear will say 'hey on the next version we're going to try this, add these features and network modes, we got this kind of feedback from the audience, maybe you guys can apply something.' A lot of times at the game designer level they try to communicate, and each project will help the other one grow.

Mori: To summarize and add on to what Daisuke said, we're not a huge company, so I think communication is very key. Because we're not that large, the barrier to reach out to someone across the office is not as big as it might be for a huge, huge studio.

Wes: Is there a lot of shared technology between the different games? The engines that you used, the network infrastructure?

Mori: As far as the network infrastructure is concerned, there is a lot of overlap, but in terms of the engines, anything that has a BlazBlue look, versus a Guilty Gear look, are fundamentally different. Guilty Gear Xrd uses Unreal, where BlazBlue is a self-developed engine we've been modifying and improving upon since the Guilty Gear XX era.

Ishiwatari: Among the games developed inside Arc System Works, there are some universal themes and systems very familiar to people playing any Arc System Works game. So you have your Guilty Gears and BlazBlues and if one tries something new and gets a really good response, generally the other will try to improve upon that, integrate it, and then the barrier to cross between any of our games is generally very low. Of course, there are some exceptions, where one team might disagree with some kind of mechanic or element the other team is really gung-ho about. Those are always up for discussion.

Wes: On the PC, what has it been like for Arc System Works to start bringing their games to Steam? What has the fanbase been like? Has it grown a lot since you started bringing your games to the PC?

Mori: In terms of our PC releases, I think it's still very very young in its development stages. Yes, we have begun to bring games to the PC, but having said that, we haven't noticed any large movement in terms of shift in fanbase or anything of that nature. I think we'll find out in the coming years how that's going to affect that our company structure.

Wes: Is developing for PC still a challenge for the team, or is it as easy now as developing for PS4, arcade?

Mori: In terms of the development on PC, creating a 1:1 clone of any game, it's been pretty standard inside of our team. It's no more or less difficult than developing for any other platform. The biggest challenge right now is making them talk to each other across platforms. That's been a big theme. 

Ishiwatari: Each platform has its own quirks and its own fanbase, and we have many micro communities, where if you add everyone together we should have a pretty big community, but it's hard to get everyone matched with everyone else. I think a big bottleneck of fighting games is when you want to play but can't get matched with someone of a similar level. We have five different populations across five different platforms. Of course there's the technological barrier and difficulties of that, as well as the politics.

Wes: How does it feel to have, is it three Arc System Works games that are going to be on the main stage at EVO this year?

Mori: Of course we're very, very thankful. One of the titles being Dragon Ball, it's hard to say how much we really played a role in that, but it's a very heartwarming feeling.

Wes: There's never been another Dragon Ball game on the main stage of EVO, I don't think.

Mori: Our president is saying 10 years from now, I want only Arc games on EVO's main stage [laughs].

On a very personal level, it's a shame Central Fiction wasn't selected to be a main stage title. Going back to my previous point, if we did have Central Fiction, I think the Japanese players would have an advantage, which is not what I'm trying to do for this next era.

Wes: Within Arc System Works, which of your games are most popular in Japan, vs. the West?

Ishiwatari: As far as overseas is concerned, Double Dragon and the Kunio franchise really seem to have a lot of traction and popularity.

Mori: Of course, traditionally this has been a very niche kind of game, and the sort of branding that's been pushed, but with Anime Expo, Comic-Con, you see a lot more Japanese content, and even in US pop culture, what used to be subculture, comics, was always a more nerdy thing, is starting to take the main stage more and more. So I think if we can get people to see, hey, there's a really fun platform to engage upon, then that'll be really good.

Wes: If either of you could make an anime fighter from any series or property, what would you like to adapt?

Ishiwatari: The Simpsons [laughs].

Mori: Family Guy!

Ishiwatari: And Teen Titans is one of my personal favorites.

Mori: Oh, and Powerpuff Girls!

The first two DLC characters for fighting game Dragon Ball FighterZ have been revealed. Goku's father Bardock will arrive alongside Broly, one of Goku's sworn enemies. Bandai Namco has not yet announced a price or release date for the DLC package.

Bardock will have a super move called Revenger Assault, which transforms him into a Super Saiyan and lets him rain down damage from above, while Broly will pack an aerial energy attack called Gigantic Meteor. Bandai Namco announced the two fighters this week in V-Jump magazine (via Siliconera).

The DLC pack will also contain extra loot for anybody that owns Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 in the form of character outfits and accessories.

I've not yet had a chance to play FighterZ, but I'd like to. Nathan gave it a big thumbs up in his review, and it's taken the fighting game community by storm. If you're just starting out, here's a few quick tips for beginners.

Which characters from the Dragon Ball Z universe would you like to see in future DLC?

Sonic the Hedgehog's gaming career has blossomed in the past decade. He's gone to the Olympics with Mario. He's punched Mario in the face in Super Smash Bros. He's headlined a kart racer with an all-star cast. He's been an anthropomorphic motorcycle in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. And now Sonic is finally on the battlefield he was born for: powering up into golden Super Sonic in Dragon Ball FighterZ. Bless you, PC modders. You're doing the lord's work.

Modder Beatz posted the work-in-progress video above of Sonic (and Super Sonic) skins added into Dragon Ball FighterZ, overwriting the character of teen Gohan. There's work left to be done to replace Gohan's voice clips, but the animation already looks shockingly good on Sonic's model—he looks perfectly at home punching and kicking Frieza, flying through the air, and charging up massive kamehamehas. It feels only fitting that Super Sonic, an homage to Dragon Ball Z, gets to come full circle here.

Also, I'm just saying: you probably didn't know you needed to see Sonic firing off a one-handed kamehama with Goku at his side, but trust me. You did need it.

The Sonic mods are a collaborative effort between modders BeatzYT3, SirGiygas, NibrocRock, and _Mizumi. They're not available yet, but separate downloads for Sonic and Super Sonic are on the way. Keep a look out on the FighterZ mods website. 

Dragon Ball FighterZ is a fantastic fighting game, and its combination of good punching and sharp looks have taken the fighting community by storm. Meanwhile, we're psyched it's on PC because it lets us do stuff like this—thanks to Nvidia's DSR downsampling and the training mode's HUD options, I cranked DBFZ up to a cool 5K resolution and got rid of all the on-screen clutter. That left me with a clean, gorgeous image to screenshot to my heart's content.

Here's a collection of my best shots. Click the link below each one to view or download the full 5K image.

It’s been a long time since a fighting game has caused as much excitement as Dragon Ball FighterZ. Billed as the first competitive Dragon Ball fighting game, its bombastic 3v3 combat has captured the imagination of everyone from the Dragon Ball fan whose never thrown a Hadouken before, to Evo champions looking for their next challenge. 

When you consider that several big name fighters in the last year or so have failed to capture the casual crowd or have been mired in controversy, it’s a minor miracle that the excitement for Dragon Ball FighterZ has not dwindled since its reveal back at E3 2017. As a new crop of players is set to join the fighting game community off the back of DBFZ, I’ve chatted to a handful of community members about the hype surrounding the game, its potential to positively impact the fighting game community (FGC) and how to make this new blood stick around.

While most of the hype surrounding Dragon Ball FighterZ comes from the overwhelming popularity of the license, it has grown to a fever pitch in the FGC due to the prestige associated with its developer, Arc System Works. There have been plenty of Dragon Ball fighting games—with Super Dragon Ball Z being developed by ARIKA, the studio of Street Fighter II designer Akira Nishitani—but Dragon Ball FighterZ is the first fighter developed with the competitive crowd in mind. With Arc System Works’ glowing track record with Guilty Gear and BlazBlue, they seem the perfect people for translating Dragon Ball’s over-the-top action into a proper competitive fighter.

Competitive edge

According to three-time Evo champion Carl “PerfectLegend” White, the FGC had “been waiting for a [truly] competitive Dragon Ball fighting game for a very long time,” so the reveal of Dragon Ball FighterZ, with Arc System Works as its developer, was as if the community’s prayers had been answered. Rather than being localized within the anime fighter community, the excitement for Dragon Ball FighterZ stretches across every sub-group within the wider FGC. 

“The vast majority of the FGC  is massive on Dragon Ball” says veteran commentator Ryan “Ketchup” Neal, with its place as both a tag and anime fighter earning it extra kudos among those communities. With its announcement also coming after continued unease surrounding the tag fighter king, Marvel vs. Capcom, Dragon Ball FighterZ raised the spirits of the FGC. For Derek “Nakkiel” Bruscas, a top anime fighter player, DBFZ has had him making “new contacts/friends with people who I very likely never would have spoken with otherwise”, showing the game’s potential to bring together players across the various niches within the FGC. Factor in the influx of casual players, and people coming from the Dragon Ball Xenoverse community—the other major Dragon Ball game on the market at the moment—and the FGC is set to grow even larger and more interconnected.

And even if this vision of a more united community does not come to pass, there will be a guaranteed boost in spectators and competitors, thanks to DBFZ. It is already the most popular game at Combo Breaker (one of the FGC’s major summer tournaments), its Twitch viewership during the open beta was the highest seen for a fighting game outside of Evo and it could find itself alongside Street Fighter V and Super Smash Bros. Melee within the “top three biggest turnouts for every major event this year”, reckons Alex Jebailey, head TO of Community Effort Orlando. Outside of tentpole events, players have taken the initiative by planning tournament circuits, like Brucas’ local community in the Pacific Northwest creating a special “Budokai League”, with its winner being flown out to a US major of their choice. 

Grassroots endeavor

With players coming from different communities to compete, Neal imagines there will be plenty of excitement coming from seeing if “particular games will spawn a consistent amount of successful players that came from them.” Expect some fierce rivalries and tense exhibition matches once Dragon Ball FighterZ gathers steam. 

Grassroots support can only go so far though; Dragon Ball FighterZ will need continued developer support if it hopes to rival the likes of Street Fighter V. A character pass has already been announced, adding eight new characters (come on Master Roshi and Toppo), but there’s been no news on an official tournament circuit yet. Bandai Namco is no stranger to running events like the Tekken World Tour, but it may pay to let DBFZ build a faithful audience before trying to compete with the Capcom Pro Tour. 

“I'd like this game to have time to grow organically within the community” says Jebailey, as opposed to it being pushed as an esport from the very start. While the competitive audience have been in mind, Dragon Ball FighterZ has not been built with esports at its core—a refreshing change compared to other recent fighting games. So it may pay for Dragon Ball FighterZ to remain as a grassroots endeavour in the short term, while a wave of new players get used to its combat systems.

And it's this surge of interest from players who aren’t embedded in the FGC that is Dragon Ball FighterZ’s biggest strength. It has broken the record for the most popular fighting game launch on PC, with over 43,000 players playing on launch day, beating out the previous recorder holder Tekken 7 by well over 30,000 people. Should Dragon Ball FighterZ manage to retain half of those numbers, it will be a game changer. The FGC is determined to keep these newbies around, as there is already a glut of beginner guides, videos and primers to get you up to speed. Bruscas has started his own tutorial series, White has a dedicated DBFZ Discord for those looking to play and Neal and his twin brother are streaming their own path to mastery over on their Twitch channel. 

“There's going to be plenty of ways a newcomer can learn” says Neal, but the most important lesson will be leaving “whatever ego exists from other games at the door.” Champions can come from any source, so don’t overlook anyone in this exciting new world of screaming, spiky hair and energy beams.

With Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition out now, SoulCalibur VI on the way and the line-up for Evo 2018 being announced in just over a week’s time, Dragon Ball FighterZ comes at the best time if you want to get into fighting games. Its relative accessibility compared to other fighters makes it a great place to start, with it teaching you fundamental skills that can be applied to other fighters. Plus, its shared DNA with both anime and tag fighters will make the transition to those subgenres easier, should you be interested. 

As for the wider picture, the FGC now has “crossovers [with] the wrestling world, lots of other celebrity avenues and cross promotions” says Jebailey, with the recent Super Saiyan Showdown between Dragon Ball voice actors Sean Schemmel and Christopher Sabat generating huge interest from people outside of the scene. The combination of outside interest, a willingness to nurture new players and support from both its developers and the grassroots community, Dragon Ball FighterZ has every chance to have the FGC stand toe-to-toe with its esports brethren.