Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3, formerly known as Dragon Ball Project: Age 1000, is developer Dimps’ and publisher Bandai Namco’s third foray into the Xenoverse series, set to release at some point in 2027. The first two games are good fun, provided you’re a fan of the series, but it’s fair to say they’ve already aged quite poorly—and I say that as a fan.
However, someone at Bandai Namco’s head office must have reached into the couch cushions for some extra budget this time around, because the latest trailer for the upcoming action RPG looks like a marked improvement over the previous two games, and all of the previews from Summer Game Fest that dropped today attest to that.
The most surprising improvement on display in the trailer is the quality of the cutscenes. That might sound like a bizarre thing to focus on, even if you’ve played Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, but I highly suggest you go back and watch some of the cutscenes, if you can even really call them cutscenes, from the first two games and compare them against what’s on offer in Xenoverse 3.
In previous games, the overwhelming majority of cutscenes were just in-game animations and didn’t exactly feature much in the way of direction, but that’s thankfully not the case this time. Even the in-game ones look pretty damn good this time—honestly, the game just looks pretty in general. Plus, your character is actually voiced this time! Only took two games, but hey.
Previews for the game have also surfaced, with the most comprehensive one I read being from IGN’s Will Borger. Probably the detail that most Dragon Ball fans will be happy to learn is that the late Akira Toriyama, the series’ creator who passed in 2024, had a hand in crafting Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3’s world and lore before his passing.
“He designed the characters, kind of came up with the setting and the lore in this [universe],” producer Masayuki Hirano revealed in his interview with IGN. “The Dragon Ball Xenoverse as a franchise has always been about a new Dragon Ball experience, something you can’t experience in any other game or in any past game.”
Hirano was also interviewed by MonsterVine, who directly asked him about Dimps’ and Bandai Namco’s post-release plans for the game. Those of you familiar with Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 will know that the game received roughly 10 years of post-release support, through frequent updates and its ungodly amount of DLC.
According to Hirano, the length of time that Dimps spent supporting Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 after its release was a surprise even for him, but he hopes that they can match that 10-year-long support window with Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3, as it’s one of the last projects Toriyama worked on before his passing.
“Well, initially, before Xenoverse 2 came out, I was doing a press tour similar to this,” Hirano told MonsterVine. “What I had said to the media was that we’re going to support the game for one year. So, somehow, that one thing led to another. And here we are, 10 years later, but I think a large part of that was because the fans wanted it, and we could tell they wanted it so much.”
“So, it was definitely not planned, and it was because of the fans’ support that we were able to do that,” he continued. “In an ideal world, we want to do something similar with Xenoverse 3[…]This is one of Toriyama-sensei’s worlds that he had created and spent so much time developing. I would love to personally live inside that world as long as possible.”
Personally, if you’re a Dragon Ball fan, knowing that Toriyama was involved is likely more than enough to convince you to give Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 a try. Still, it’s nice to know that Dimps plans to support it for as long as possible, even if that means that we’ll ultimately have to shell out well over $100 to get all of the content.