Rumor: new Dragon Ball action RPG in production; game would become Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot

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Anyone who spent childhood watching Goku on free-to-air TV in the late afternoon always dreamed of a game that told the whole saga, without rushing, like the old cartridge RPGs. In February 2018, that dream got a clue: the Reddit user known as DasVergeben posted that a new Dragon Ball action RPG was in pre-production at Bandai Namco, and that a Xenoverse 3, which many people were expecting, was not in development.

At the time, we treated the information as a rumor, and that was right: there was no official confirmation. But the context helped make it believable. Dragon Ball FighterZ, by Arc System Works, had come out on January 26, 2018 and finished the month as the second best-selling game in the United States, according to NPD, behind only Monster Hunter: World. It was the franchise’s best launch month in the country since Dragon Ball Z: Budokai, from 2002. With the series on the rise, it was natural for Bandai Namco to prepare more games.

In the same Reddit thread, DasVergeben also listed names said to be on the way to FighterZ’s second season of characters, among them Gogeta, Master Roshi, Videl, Raditz, Zarbon, Kale and Caulifla. It was many people’s wish list, but those following knew that a leak is like an unlabeled tape: you only know what is inside when you put it in to play.

What came next

The rumor was confirmed almost a year later. In January 2019, during the FighterZ world tournament finals, Bandai Namco showed the first trailer for a new action RPG set in the world of Dragon Ball Z, provisionally called Dragon Ball Game: Project Z, developed by CyberConnect2, the same studio behind Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm.

The final name, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, was revealed at Microsoft’s E3 2019 conference, and the game came out on January 17, 2020 on PS4, Xbox One and PC, retelling the Z saga from Raditz’s arrival to the fight against Majin Buu. Switch followed in 2021, and PS5 and Xbox Series in 2023. Kakarot sold 1.5 million copies in its first week and reached 10 million in January 2026.