‘Dragon Ball FighterZ’ Fans Unhappy As The Game Is Dropped From Another Tournament

Last week, Dragon Ball FighterZ made headlines when the EVO Japan 2019 games line-up was revealed, and the popular 2018-fighter from Bandai Namco was missing.

Now, Aksys Games has announced that the game also won’t be present at Anime Ascension. And again, a reason why, isn’t divulged and isn’t obvious.

As you may know, these aren’t the only two tournaments were the game has been dropped — for example, it was also dropped from DreakHack in Atlanta for undisclosed reasons as well. This is to say, there appears to be a worrying trend of the game rejecting tournaments, despite its popularity and despite the demand to see the game at said events.

And of course fans aren’t pleased with this trend. For one, it’s not good for the game’s longevity. Sure, the game is popular and loved by many, but skipping tournaments is one way to get the fighting game community to move onto other games. But more importantly, fans want to see and play their favorite fighting games at tournaments. The game was at EVO 2018, but since then, it’s been rejecting tournaments and events, and the community is starting to get annoyed not only by this, but by the lack of communication on why it is happening.

So, who is to blame? Well, there’s no reason to think it’s Bandai Namco, who has no history of pulling games, and so a lot of fans and players think it comes down to Toei Animation, the IP holders of Dragon Ball, and who is known for being, well, a stick in the mud when it comes to this type of stuff.

Whether Toei is the reason for all of this hooplah, who knows. It seems likely, but it can’t be known for sure. Whatever the case, Dragon Ball FighterZ being pulled from tournaments and events is going to negatively impact the game’s scene and community, if it hasn’t already.