Dragon Ball FighterZ 2 or a different big anime fighting game appears to be in development
Courtesey of a new job listing in Japan
Dragon Ball FighterZ blew the doors off everyone's expectations in terms of its success and reach as an anime-based fighting game, and now there appears to be some sort of follow up in the works.
A recent job listing posted on the Japanese website Freelance Hub (no relation) is searching for a developer to work on a new fighting game based on "a super famous battle manga" with all signs pointing to Dragon Ball FighterZ 2 or at the very least the companies that made the first title with a new property — and no it's not very likely to be another arena fighter.
This subcontracting work listing doesn't reveal which developer or title they'll be working with though there's still a good number of details that quickly narrow down the list of possibilities.
The biggest clue of all are the sections talking about the title being a famous large-scale IP from a major game company.
"To those who enjoy a super famous battle manga from a certain publisher (it's a manga that everybody knows about)", reads the last portion of the job description as translated by our own Nicholas 'Majin Tenshinhan' Taylor.
Bandai Namco is pretty much the only option for a publisher here considering they own the video game rights to all Shonen Jump manga franchises, which encompasses all of the largest and most well-known battle anime in the world for the most part.
Arc System Works is the most likely candidate for the development studio as well following their work on Dragon Ball FighterZ and relationship with Bandai Namco.
Unreal Engine 4 is also specifically mentioned as what the game will be running on, which both companies have been using for their fighting games for years now.
"What makes us so sure this isn't going to be just another arena fighter like My Hero One's Justice or Jump Force?" you may be asking yourself.
Well, Japan places those kinds of titles in the action game genre while the post states that the project is a fighting game multiple times.
Dragon Ball FighterZ received its last DLC character in March, and they haven't exactly said anything about the game since
A sequel to Dragon Ball FighterZ is the most prominent choice as the identity of the title for multiple reasons though that doesn't mean it will ultimately be the game we end up seeing.
In 2018, DBFZ set the record at the time for the fastest selling Dragon Ball video game of all time by shipping over 2 million copies in a week upon releasing and has gone on to push over 6 million as of the end of 2020, making it one of the largest licensed fighting games of all time.
Much of that came from the global brand recognizability of Dragon Ball that not many other manga properties can match at that scale.
Dragon Ball FighterZ also received multiple years of large-scale eSports support though we haven't heard anything about new content coming, which has many believing that Super Saiyan 4 Gogeta marked the end of DLC for the title.
Working on a direct sequel to DBFZ where they already have mechanics, characters and a game engine to build on would be much easier on the development side rather than starting from scratch with a new property.
Demon Slayer is receiving an arena fighter later this year in Japan, but the status of the new game doesn't put it in competition with the upcoming title
If the title being worked on isn't DBFZ-related, the most likely alternate candidates are: One Piece, Naruto, Demon Slayer (Kimetsu no Yaiba), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Bleach and Fist of the North Star.
Other manga properties Bandai Namco could use include My Hero Academia, Hunter x Hunter and Jujutsu Kaisen, and while those series are very popular right now, they aren't on the same sales levels as the ones mentioned above.
There were previously rumors that a My Hero Academia fighting game was in the works and would make an appearance at E3 2021, but that's come and gone now without any signs of the title to be found.
One Piece is the best selling manga series of all time, which certainly makes them a prime candidate, and ArcSys already has experience working with Monkey D. Luffy with fighting games on the Nintendo 3DS.
Demon Slayer's chances have skyrocketed over the past few years as well after exploding in popularity around the world. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train was also the highest-grossing film of 2020 and became the biggest anime film and Japanese film in general of all time.
As for other details surrounding the project, it is planned to release on at least the PlayStation 5.
We probably won't be seeing what it actually is though for at least a year or two considering its stated to still be in the planning phases according to the listing.
"It's a newly started project so you can participate from the planning stage all the way up to official testing, which should make for an even more fun game development experience. The project is planned for PlayStation 5 as a platform," reads the job description.
Considering this is simply a work posting with no names officially attached, we should still obviously take this with a healthy grain of salt even if it does appear to be legitimate.
No matter what franchise Bandai Namco presumably goes with next, the fighting game community will be first in line to take it for a spin.
Contributions were made to this story by Nicholas Taylor. Special thanks to Rooflemonger for partly bringing this to our attention.
