With its first season wrapped up and the great success the title has seen, it'll be exciting to see what they bring us next

First of all, it's important to stress that no official announcement of a second DLC season has been made for Dragon Ball FighterZ, hence the "likely" in the title.

What we do know, however, is that the game has done incredibly well, smashing records in the process, and exceeded expectations in a very swift manner.

On top of this, the title has been incredibly well-received by both casual and competitive players alike, managing to set viewership records at EVO 2018 as well.

With all this in mind, it seems like a foregone conclusion that we'll be getting a second season of DLC for the game after the World Tour Finals wrap up at the end of January.

This would coincide quite nicely with the game's launch this year, which was at the end of January as well, meaning it's possible we could even have a similar release schedule to what we saw this year.

All of this is just theorizing, of course, and the whole piece is going to be done as such. We're going to look at what Dragon Ball FighterZ has given us so far, since its release, and what could likely be in store for us next year, if they continue to support this massively successful title (seriously, they would be crazy not to).

Balance adjustments This is, of course, the most obvious part. No matter what next year brings for Dragon Ball FighterZ, balance changes are always going to happen, for better or worse. Given the patches we've seen so far, it's likely we'll see a careful fine-tuning approach rather than any massive shifts, though, as I noted in my previous article regarding the patch. With how hard Bandai Namco are pushing the competitive aspect of this game, capitalizing on its massive popularity, you can bet they want to keep that aspect interesting for their playerbase, and try to avoid making anyone too upset with drastic changes to their chosen fighter. Obviously, since this is a game based on a wildly popular and successful outside IP, a lot of care has been placed on making each character feel loyal to the source material, and for fans to feel pleased with how they are. Because of this, balance changes will probably focus on evening out the pick rate rather than switching archetypes or revamping any characters. As with most competitive games, you can bet the developers have had their eyes on which characters are popular at the top competitive levels. We already saw this with the previous patch, it's just that a few characters probably need to be nudged a little bit further.

Potential new system additions In the current age of fighting games, we're seeing more and more of evolving platforms rather than sequels, meaning that when a game releases, it's common for the developer to want to support it continuously after release with new additions, including refreshing the systems in place in the game. This doesn't have to be a gigantic shift — it can be as simple as when Street Fighter 5: Arcade Edition gave every character a second V-Trigger, but it can also be something like Tekken 7 Season 2 giving each character a wall bounce move, a mechanic that simply did not exist in the game before that. It's hard to gauge in advance what kind of mechanic they'd be adding, but there's a lot of potential here. For example, modern 3 vs. 3 fighting games of the type that Dragon Ball FighterZ is have typically had several different assists to choose from. A small, but impactful, change could be to give each character a second selectable assist, which could shift team synergy for a lot of players in a big way without removing any of the existing ones. Obviously, there could be additions much more impactful than that, especially since it's Namco Bandai in charge, who made the aforementioned wall bounce addition to Tekken 7 earlier this year. Given the nature of the series, having beam struggles would be an iconic throwback to the source material, though it's hard to imagine how those could be implemented without making it annoying. Previous Dragon Ball games have had this, and it doesn't tend to lend itself very well to a competitive environment. Another example would be the ability to use your Sparking Blast charge for something entirely different, perhaps as a combo breaker similar to Guilty Gear Xrd's burst system, and once you've used it, it'll be gone for the remainder of the match, much like after a Sparking Blast charge ends. All of this is just spitballing, and since I'm not in the development room, none of it is meant as an entirely serious suggestion, but rather just examples of what kind of mechanics we could see added next year. Personally, I'd like some more defensive options, since I don't feel that Reflect quite cuts it on its own.

Additional casual-focused content or cosmetic skins While Dragon Ball FighterZ has done exceptionally well in the competitive landscape, becoming the first game to overshadow Street Fighter in entrants at EVO since Street Fighter 4 launched, there's no arguing that a very large portion of the people who purchased the game and made it into the financial success that it is are casual players. Dragon Ball is a massive franchise, and it has tons of fans that have no interest in seriously competing, so it's only natural that many of them bought the game, too. As such, it seems likely we'd get some content aimed more at the players who aren't trying to become world championships. After all, the game had a lengthy, albeit repetitive, story mode on launch, clearly showing that they want players to have a substantial single player experience if that's what they choose to do. There are several options here. You could add goofy online modes that are more crazy than competitive, though I personally think it's more likely that they'd focus on additional single player or perhaps even co-operative modes to please their casual fanbase. The easy answer is to add another original story mode, since the first one wasn't part of the main series, and spin further from what they did in the first one. Another one is to make a downloadable story mode that focuses on battles from the actual series, though this could prove difficult due to the relatively limited roster compared to what Dragon Ball games usually have. One thing that I would personally enjoy is if they made boss battles against foes that required more than one person to take them down in the series. For example, you could have a fight where you use Tenshinhan (or Tien in English versions), Krillin and Piccolo against a super-powered Nappa, to emulate the fight from the original. Another interesting area is cosmetic additions, basically new outfits for characters. There are a wealth of different outfits throughout Dragon Ball that I'm sure people would be more than happy to see added, the most obvious being having Android 17 in his classic clothes instead of his Dragon Ball Super threads when you're playing as him. Besides that, though, you have a lot different versions of armor for Vegeta, Krillin with hair, Android 18 in her Buu Saga clothing, there's just a ton of stuff they could add if they felt like it, and I'm sure fans would eat right up.

New characters Of course, getting into the nitty-gritty, the area people care about the most, brand new characters. There's no shortage of fighters from the Dragon Ball franchise to choose from, but let's look at the focus of this first year of DLC to try and figure out some potential newcomers we might see next year, assuming they follow the same procedure and add 8 characters, like they did in 2018. What we saw this year were the only two movie villains to headline more than one feature each, through Broly and Cooler, one of the most popular characters from non-canon material (later made canon in the manga) in the main character's father, Bardock. We also saw two Dragon Ball Super characters with the release of Vegito in his Super Saiyan Blue form and Fused Zamasu, which is relevant since it's the first new Dragon Ball content in a long time, as well as Android 17 joining the fray, and while he's a more classic character, he was heavily based on his Super incarnation. Finally, two bombs of nostalgia in the classic versions of Goku and Vegeta in their Base forms, showcasing one of the most important and beloved fights from the entire franchise. Judging from this, it's clear that they want to focus somewhat, but not entirely, on the new Super content. This means, as many have already surmised, that Jiren is practically guaranteed, being the strongest foe to appear in Super thus far. Other likely additions the first female Saiyans to have any notable fighting scenes, in Caulifla and Kale, or even as one character together in their fused form Kefla. Besides this, we've also been shown that non-canon additions aren't off the table (although Broly is about to become canon with the new movie release — but I digress), meaning that other popular movie villains probably aren't something to raise your nose at. Judging from the popularity of their films and in games in general, I'd say that both Bojack and Janemba have quite healthy chances. Another character who's a classic within the series, and saw an increased role in Super is Master Roshi, also known as Kamesennin (the Turtle Hermit), who has trained several of the characters currently playable, and remains a very popular fighter despite being outclassed battle-wise for the latter half of the series. There are still characters from the latter part of the original Dragon Ball (Dragon Ball Z in the anime) that people would surely welcome to the fray as well, such as Raditz, Zarbon and Dabura, all distinct characters with unique abilities and their own rivalries with current cast members. Basically, if I were to guess, we'd see a healthy mix of basically everything (except original early Dragon Ball, because we're not allowed to have nice things) next year as well, as far as characters go.

What are you hoping to see from Dragon Ball FighterZ next year? Let us know in the comments.