Bandai Namco’s Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, developed by CyberConnect2, may look awfully familiar to your average fan. That’s because the story of Goku and his battle against enemies like Vegeta and Frieza has been captured numerous times since the series’ inception. The action RPG will be going a lot further though, promising the most intense recreation of Goku’s adventures yet.
That means featuring the same enormous areas that Goku and friends usually fight in. However, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot won’t have an open world per se. Speaking to DualShockers, producer Hara Ryosuke and director Kimoto Kazuki said the world is divided into several “very large” areas. They’ll become available as the story progresses.
“I kind of want to mention I don’t think this is a true open world in the way we’ve kind of come to understand the definition of an open world today,” said Ryosuke. “There are several very large and wide expansive areas or zones if you will where you can experience different sagas of the Goku story. They’ll be unlocked as you progress through the narrative.
“To kind of give you a visual sense of how this is going to work; when you played the demo you saw that one area that Goku was interacting and progressing the story in. If you continue to ascend you’ll zoom out into this world map interface. From which point you choose an area and dive into that. So that’s how the areas and zones are connected.”
The lack of an open world may help the game, since the series is known more for its memorable fights. This approach provides a large world to explore, while keeping a stronger focus on story aspects (like new character interactions) and combat. Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is scheduled to release in early 2020 for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
