Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO will not have rollback netcode, producer says
Bandai Namco Entertainment’s 3D arena fighter Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO has been announced for October 11, 2024. The fourth installment of the Budokai Tenkaichi series comes after a 17-year gap, building upon its predecessors’ gameplay with an impressive roster of playable characters. One of the points many have been curious about is whether Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO’s will use rollback netcode. In a recent interview, the title’s main producer Jun Furutani has confirmed that the game will not be implementing rollback.
By predicting players’ input, rollback netcodes offset lag and allow smoother interaction during online matches. That’s why, over the years, rollback has risen in demand when it comes to online fighter games, and its presence has even become a deal-breaker for some players when deciding what games to buy.
Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO will include ranked online matches as well as casual online matches, but will not be using rollback netcode, as recently clarified by Furutani in an interview with Famitsu. Rollback is most often associated with 2D fighters, so it’s possible that as a 3D arena fighter, Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO’s mechanics are not that compatible with it. Furutani also stressed that ZERO differs from titles such as Dragon Ball FighterZ, which is “esports oriented and highly competitive.” By contrast, ZERO seems to put a bigger emphasis on its RPG elements and staying true to Dragon Ball’s story and setting.
One example of this is how Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO does not balance out characters to be perfectly fair, but rather prioritizes depicting strong characters as strong. While commenting that there are no current plans to balance out characters to be on equal terms, Furutani says that certain adjustments may be considered in the future based on user feedback.
Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO is scheduled to be released on October 11 for the PC (Steam), PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
I hope Bandai Namco has a roadmap chart for fixing this eventually and to begin to listen to the players. Because there is a difference between trying and failing vs not trying and allowing it to fail. Does not matter the ignorance or knowledge at hand when this is a 70$ game that seems to be lacking right now. Rollback Netcode is A feature that Capcom, SNK, even Arksys try to do their best to include it in all their Fighting games, it should be common because 3D Fighters do not have that much of complex logic than any other gaming genre that uses Rollback Netcode under the name of “Lag Compensation” that has existed for 25 years.