Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 Is The Bombastic Evolution This Great Series Needed

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 looks like an enormous leap in quality compared to the previous games, but one of its core mechanics is rubbing me the wrong way.

At Summer Game Fest 2026, I attended a hands-off gameplay session for Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 that walked attendees through one of the game’s missions.

The third game seemingly ditches the Time Patrol in favour of superheroes, a premise I’m most excited for, as there’s only so many times you can make a Dragon Ball “What if?...” story interesting.

I liked what I saw, with the sole exception of a new combat mechanic that I’m struggling to see the appeal of.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 Is Custom Character Heaven

The gameplay we were shown was of an Earthling custom character fighting the legendary Super Saiyan Broly in a snowy tundra. That’s quite a battle to kick off with.

I was enamoured with how the game looked this time around. The Xenoverse games are notoriously cartoon-y and frankly, the art style used has never been my cup of tea. Edges always felt a bit too sharp, and the colour saturation was hit and miss.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 looks gorgeous, however. The characters look smooth and expressive, energy blasts are bright and vibrant, and environments pop as they should. It’s not Dragon Ball Sparking Zero levels of graphical goodness, but it’s a tremendous improvement and compared to Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, it’s like night and day.

Where the demo really shined though was the combat. It is a Dragon Ball game after all.

Your custom character can be equipped with a staggering amount of moves plucked from the world-famous anime and manga series and while I recognised a few from previous games, you’ll clearly have some new tricks up your sleeve.

One of them is Soul Assist, which lets you summon a hero (or villain) from Dragon Ball’s history to pull up a cinematic dual attack. The example I caught in the demo was a Galick Gun blast alongside Vegeta. I’m liking the look of this mysterious power, especially since I’ve based my previous Xenoverse characters off my favourite Dragon Ball cast members.

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What I wasn’t a fan of however, was Soul Change. This mechanic basically lets you become one of your favourite characters temporarily, giving you access to their skills and fighting power.

Bandai Namco

While cool in theory, I’m not convinced by this addition just yet. If I’ve gone to the time and effort to make my custom character look stylish and heroic, why would I want to see another character in their place?

It feels unnecessary, though I’d imagine they’re entirely optional. It looked as if they took the place of normal transformations, so if that’s the case, I’ll be sticking to the pre-established ones, like Super Saiyan.

The remainder of the demo followed the rest of the fight against Broly and it was quite the spectacle. When the player wasn’t going hand-to-hand, they were ducking behind cover to avoid a torrent of energy blasts, so it looks like boss battles will be much more than mere button mashers.

We even got a glimpse of the Super Saiyan transformation for Saiyans, which finally makes their hair stick up as it does in the show, rather than just changing the colour like in previous games.

Silly Soul Changes aside, I liked what I saw of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3. While some of the new gameplay mechanics aren’t my cup of tea, I can at least give credit where it’s due and say I’m glad to see the sequel experimenting with new ideas.

It looks like the evolution the series deserves. An amalgamation of the best parts of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero and even Dragon Ball Fighters.

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 3 will be released sometime in 2027 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.