It’s been a few weeks since Bandai Namco Entertainment announced their 7v1 anime survival game Dragon Ball The Breakers. The premise of this asymmetrical game is that seven Survivors are trapped in a Temporal Seam which they must escape. Hunting these non-superpowered civilians is a super-powered villain called the Raider, who is any of three Dragonball Z villains: Cell, Frieza, or Buu. The Raider's advantage is that they can get stronger by absorbing the Survivors. The Survivors have to rely on skill and cooperation to survive.
This survival aspect has drawn comparisons to a similar game, Dead by Daylight. However, footage from closed beta tests last December 3 and 4 shows that Dragon Ball The Breakers is a very different animal.
The main takeaway is that there are multiple paths to winning whether you’re a Survivor or the Raider.
For one, Survivors aren’t totally defenseless—with the right preparations, they can even kill the Raider. Scattered around the map are equipment boxes players can loot for weapons and vehicles. They can use weapons to shoot directly at the Raider to deal some damage, use vehicles to escape or move to an important location, or activate their radar to locate Power Keys.
Survivors can also use Dragon Change by collecting Change Power scattered across the map. This gives players the ability to turn into powerful Dragonball Z characters who can either attack the Raider, defend the Super Time Machine, rescue fellow players, or simply flee from danger.
Survivors can also collect Dragonballs that are scattered around the map. If they can use this to summon Shenron, they can wish for increased power for the entire team, or raise their personal Dragon Change to maximum level, matching the Raider’s final form. In this case, you can face the Raider as Dragonball Z's protagonist, Son Goku.
Finally, activating the Super Time Machine will fix the Temporal Seam and destroy the Raider once and for all.
Of course, these measures can also backfire against Survivors. An ill-timed weapon attack on the Raider can give away your position. The Raider can also steal the Dragonballs from Survivors to either wish to increase power by one level or heal to maximum health.
All this provides an interesting cat-and-mouse dynamic where one side can turn the tables on the other with the right planning and timing. That said, giving Survivors options to fight the Raider removes much of the horror impact, making it more of an action game than Dead by Daylight ever was. Which is a bit of a letdown to horror fans like myself, but seems to fit the spirit of Dragonball Z better, in any case. Here's some more gameplay footage, care of DBZanto:
While it doesn’t have a release date yet, you can watch this space for more updates and best prices for Dragon Ball The Breakers.
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