Dragon Ball FighterZ in 2021

The fighting games community has adapted to this overall difficult situation pretty well, don’t you think. After some period of general shock, we managed to return even to offline tournaments.

Dragon Ball FighterZ was hit quite strongly in 2020 — to the point of having no World Tour. The beginning of 2021 continued at such a sad pace too. Yep, we got new characters, but the competition was kind of frozen. Then, everything changed for the better. So many great things happened in the DBFZ world in the second half of 2022! It would be a pleasure to recap them here.

Start of the year: Two Characters of Season 3

This is actually a pretty big thing for a fighting game — two new characters have been added to the roster. Super Baby 2 and SS4 Gogeta joined the fights in January and March, respectively. They concluded the list of five characters from the FighterZ Pass 3.

Super Baby 2 Trailer | DBFZ

Gogeta SS4 Trailer | DBFZ

A Period of Silence

DBFZ players had a lot of time to train with those new characters while the game entered a period of hibernation (sort of).

Ok, the community was pretty alive. But Dragon Ball FighterZ, in its current condition, has some issues with the online experience. No big announcements and fuss around the release of Guilty Gear -Strive- made some players consider other options in their fighting game life.

Thank goodness, this period wasn’t too long.

Evo 2021 Online — DBFZ is among Side Tournaments

After being canceled in 2020, Evo returned in 2021 — having the online-only format. Alas, Dragon Ball FighterZ wasn’t highlighted during the main event. The game was part of Evo 2021 Side Tournaments.

The competition happened in various regions. Here are NA and EU Finals, streamed on the official Twitch channel.

DBFZ EU Finals: EVO 2021 Online Side Tournaments

DBFZ NA Finals: EVO 2021 Online Side Tournaments

Wassi_Wass is the winner in North America. DaniGrasLlopi is the champion in Europe.

Kumite in Tennessee 2021

At the end of October 2021, fighting games players gathered in Tennessee. DBFZ was part of the Kumite.

DBFZ Kumite in Tennessee 2021, Stream

The winner here is Vyrmyr.

Celtic Throwdown 2021

It’s another regular tournament in the fighting esports schedule. Of course, Dragon Ball FighterZ was there.

DBFZ Celtic Throwdown 2021, Stream

Hi Kai is the winner.

CEO 2021

At the beginning of December 2021, the fighting games community could enjoy matches of CEO 2021.

DBFZ CEO 2021, Grand Finals

DismantleX defeated LegendaryyPred despite losing in the Grand Final.

Patch and World Championship

On August 9, the Bandai Namco Esports channel streamed Dragon Ball FighterZ Show 07 that announced a fresh patch coming for the game and a huge esports tournament happening around the world.

Dragon Ball FighterZ Show 07, Stream

The patch brought quite a few significant changes. That was a great motivation for everyone to launch the game and feel the updated fighting environment.

The World Championship started with a blast. There was an opening offline event in Paris with invited players from France and the USA.

France vs USA | DBFZ World Championship opening event

Tenkaichi Online Master Challenges

The structure of this World Championship is pretty interesting. Tournament organizers could apply for adding their events to the structure, so the players get official points and hope to proceed to the offline events. The more participants a tourney has, the more points are distributed.

Also, Bandai Namco hosted official tournaments named Tenkaichi Online Master Challenges. They gave the most points.

As a result, players from some regions got direct tickets to the World Championship Finals, and players from some other regions had to participate in the Regional Finals first.

Three Regional Finals: Europe, USA, Japan

With no rollback netcode, offline tournaments are where Dragon Ball FighterZ shines the best.

All three Regional Finals happened in December 2021.

Europe | DBFZ World Championship Regional Finals

Yasha is the European DBFZ Champion.

USA | DBFZ World Championship Regional Finals

Nitro is the American DBFZ Champion.

Japan | DBFZ World Championship Regional Finals

Fenritti is the Japanese DBFZ Champion.

Four top players from each Regional Final proceed to the World Championship Finals.

The Final event of Dragon Ball FighterZ World Championship is planned for February 2022 as part of Dragon Ball Games Battle Hour.

Android 21 (Lab Coat) Announced

For the Regional Finals in Japan, the developers prepared a big announcement — they revealed the next DLC character in DBFZ. Well, the idea was ok as Android 21 is a unique character, created especially for this game. But the implementation could be better. The name Android 21 (Lab Coat) sounds more like a skin than a new fighter. Still, we have… how many Gokus?.. so, let’s not complain.

Android 21 (Lab Coat) in Dragon Ball FighterZ, Trailer

A glimpse of 2022

There is one thing we still want for DBFZ, and there are almost no chances we will get it — rollback netcode. It is more likely the game will be updated to the next full release, Dragon Ball FighterZ 2 or something. And nope, we don’t have any information on that.

But we have some vague promises from Tomoko Hiroki, the producer of Dragon Ball FighterZ, to keep powering up the game in 2022. That sounds good!

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention — in 2022, Dragon Ball FighterZ was added as a new discipline to DashFight. It was so great to highlight tournaments and share professional character guides with you, guys (such as this one on Vegito by Tyrant)!

Thanks for being with us in 2021. We hope to meet you on our fighting games platform in 2022 and beyond.