Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 - Hands-Off Preview
It’s been ten years since we joined the Time Patrol in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, and while there has been plenty of DLC that has extended the life of the base game, we now know a new entry in the series is coming. I was fortunate enough to get a look at some gameplay footage and learn a few things about this new entry in a developer stream, the first being it looks like this entry is going to shake up the narrative with what appears to be a move away from the Time Patrol.
With nothing to go on but the ‘GS’ symbol on the back of the uniforms and the Capsule Corp branding, combined with no sign of the Future Trunks and Supreme Kai of Time that oversaw the protection of history, we will just have to wait for more information. Personally, I think this could be a good thing and provides an opportunity to experience a new journey rather than the same-same of bad guys changing history and the fight to stop it we have already experienced. One bit of juicy information we got during this short look was confirmation that the woman from the announcement trailer is Bulma. Maybe she got sick of using the power of the Dragon Balls for minor cosmetic procedures and just asked for eternal youth. Or maybe it has something to do with the golden ring around her neck at the end of the announcement trailer. Whatever it is, we have seen Gamma 1 is still around as well and in the gameplay footage, he was the mission giver for the portion of gameplay action we got to see.
According to the devs, there will be plenty of content for players to engage with throughout the city the game is based in. No more details were provided, but it sounds like another big change from the previous entries, where you would always be loading into a different area for gameplay. The gameplay aspects we saw will be very familiar to most players, with the same type of attacks and control schemes utilised in the previous entries, with a few tweaks and changes, of course.
The first of these was that you were one agent in a 4-person squad undertaking the mission. I have no idea if this means players can team up for co-op missions, or even if every mission will have you playing in a squad. This is one of the things we will just have to wait for more information on, but in the footage we saw, the other squad members were A.I. controlled as the squad beat down a bunch of what looked like low-level Freiza Force grunts before engaging in a boss fight against Broly.
Probably the most interesting piece of gameplay information we got was about two new Soul Abilities you can access. How these work wasn’t really explained, but what we do know is you can use a Soul Assist to call forth a legendary character as you both use one of their abilities, e.g. summoning Vegeta for a dual blast of Galick Gun. The second, Soul Switch, allows you to take on the form and abilities of the characters from the franchise and fight as them. Again, very few details given on how it works, but it looks like you can use the Soul Switch to pull off some of the iconic ultimate moves from characters in the series.
So, while we have learned a few things, there are even more questions remaining about the direction of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3. For now, we can only wait, but as a Dragon Ball fanboy, I am very much looking forward to spending a lot of hours when it releases next year.
