It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Dragon Ball brand is still so popular even in 2018. With the latest episode bringing people together to watch it in stadiums and public squares and the announcement of a new movie coming out at the end of this year, it’s understandable that the owners of the brand’s license would want to take full advantage of its success. Thus, we have Dragon Ball Legends, a new game for Android and iOS set to come out later this year, focused on online team-based combats between users all over the world. And best of all, it’s backed by the new Spanner technology from Google Cloud that will allow for a much faster connection speed than current standards provide.
What is Dragon Ball Legends?
The announcement was made by Namco Bandai at the GDC, that they’re working on its development with the one and only Dimps, the Japanese studio that’s been creating installments of the saga for consoles for over a decade. In this case, we’re talking about a fighting game wrapped up in a collectible card system, so (luckily), you don’t directly control your character, but instead, select the character’s actions using touch gestures. That said, the strategic component doesn’t take away from the spectacular visuals and could practically confirm the fact that the character models are recycled from the Xenoverse saga.
Another fact about this game that lures us in is that it’s being made in collaboration with Akira Toriyama, who will provide a new storyline and new characters that we can almost confirm are Saiyajins. In fact, the character with blue armor that we can see in the promotional images could be the same one that appears in the trailer for the upcoming movie. Beyond that, it seems clear that the game is going to provide more than enough material and collectible items to keep us hooked for hours and hours. If you watch the alternative animated trailer closely you can even catch a glimpse of characters such as Tapion, Muten Roshi, and a few other unlucky GT villains.
The first game to use Google Cloud
One of the really cool things about the game is that the combats are carried out in real time against other players all over the world using the new worldwide network from Google Cloud, or more specifically, the Google Spanner system. And here’s the real zinger: the service provides speeds that are five times faster than typical online standards through servers and MySQL databases. The sheer velocity of it seems like science fiction and it solves a lot of the problems with latency in older storage systems and database replication.
The main problem when it comes to playing videogames online with people around the world tends to be synchronization. Every place has its own time slot and, naturally, when the information passes through hundreds of physical machines and networks, there tends to synchronization problems. Google has basically played Doctor Who, trying to almost eliminate the time factor from the equation. To do this, it uses GPS receivers and atomic clocks in its data centers to avoid possible time variations that a remote connection could run to. Until recently, this technology was a total mystery, but since we are talking about a business after all, and not a utopia written by Philip K. Dick, Google recently decided to open this service up to anyone who needs it (instead of just using it for its own apps).
When will Dragon Ball Legends be available?
Currently, players can pre-register through the official website, where you can also see rewards for the early adopters that sign up for the imminent closed beta version of the game. Although there’s no official release date yet, this preliminary tester phase will take place between March 21 and 26.
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