Last month, Bandai Namco revealed Dragon Ball Daima’s best characters would be coming to Dragon Ball Sparking Zero as part of the 2024 arena fighter’s season pass. It was the final piece of announced additional content for the game, which revived the Budokai Tenkaichi series (known as Sparking in Japan) after 17 years. Still, players are craving more to do.
“IS THAT A NEW MAP?????” reads a top comment, with nearly 6,000 likes, on the Daima DLC’s YouTuber trailer.
The excitement over just one new map is emblematic of just how hungry for new content Sparking Zero players are one year after launch. The additional characters are welcome — I’ve especially enjoyed my new main, Super Saiyan 3 adult Vegeta — but players are clamoring for maps, costumes, and game modes. It’s a fervor that speaks to just how much of a hit the fighting game still is, and to how players aren’t ready to move on from it.
One measly map might seem like a small thing to salivate over, but it’s a big deal for fans. While the three DLC packs — one with characters from the 2022 film Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, two with Daima additions — brought the total roster count up to 208 fighters, First Demon World was the first and only new stage added since launch. Plenty of iconic locales from Dragon Ball (like Kami’s lookout, Kame House, and Hell) are nowhere to be found in Sparking Zero.
Instead, modders have done their part to inject variety into Sparking Zero’s map rotation. On one of the game’s two subreddits, posts showing off map mods have racked up thousands of upvotes. Costumes are also highly requested. Though there are plenty of fits in Sparking Zero, some of the more iconic and just plain fun costumes are missing. Most importantly, Badman Vegeta is tragically absent.
Even with the criticism, Sparking Zero still has a dedicated player base that’s drumming up its own reasons to keep playing. It didn’t take long for Daima-inspired bouts to populate the game’s Custom Battle mode, which allows for players to create their own fights complete with dialogue, character changes, and specific victory conditions. For example, one player has crafted an alternate timeline series, Invasion Saga, that’s spanned a dozen episodes and racked up tens of thousands of views on YouTube.
All in all, Sparking Zero likely isn’t fated to be abandoned by its players or devs. Outside of 2015’s XenoVerse, recent Dragon Ball games have a track record of receiving support for years. Kakarot continues to receive DLC five years after launch, and somehow XenoVerse 2 is still chugging along nearly a decade after it came out. Even the asymmetrical multiplayer game Dragon Ball: The Breakers is still getting support — and even I forgot that game existed.
Any worries that Sparking Zero wouldn’t receive more content, now that its season pass is complete, were assuaged with October’s Over 200 Characters trailer. It’s essentially a recap of who’s on the roster — unsurprisingly, there are a lotta Goku options — but the trailer alludes to more characters on the way, teasing more information to come in January 2026.
More characters are definitely welcome. Dragon Ball GT could use more representation in the game, like GT’s version of Vegeta and the Shadow Dragons. Original Dragon Ball characters from the first 16 volumes of the manga aren’t represented here at all, outside of Kid Goku, and could easily make up a season pass of their own.
But what the player base is really hungry for are additional game modes. Characters, cosmetics, and maps are and would be nice, but more ways to play could truly keep this game alive. Developer Spike Chunsoft has experimented with special boss battles, like the current one against Frieza, but they don’t have legs as they’re limited-time modes. Larger tournaments, an endless/survival mode, a Mortal Kombat-like pillar mode — any way to inject variety in offline and online gameplay would go a long way with Sparking Zero’s player base.
Despite player complaints, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero reviewed well (it was my totally-not-biased-at-all favorite game of 2024). It’s also done well commercially, with over 5 million units sold. We know the immediate future for Dragon Ball Sparking Zero: its player base is set to grow when it launches on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 next month. Beyond that, how much future support Dragon Ball Sparking Zero receives remains to be seen. Based on what we know so far, more characters are on the way. Outside of that? It’s anyone’s guess.
