Note: These are just theories based on the limited information available. We could be completely wrong about all of this and that’s okay. With that, we hope you enjoy the read!

With Bandai Namco’s latest website update for their upcoming fighting game Dragon Ball FighterZ, many fans, including us, have been speculating about the number of possible characters for the game. While this is a rough estimate, based on how the website has laid out the characters slots, as well as Arc System Works’ previous games, we estimate that the game will roughly have 17 or 18 characters, including DLC characters. Here’s why:

If you take a look at the website’s character page, you’ll see that Piccolo’s character slot starts a new row instead of putting it next to Krillin’s character slot. Granted, it could just be a design choice, but considering the fact that this isn’t your average Dragon Ball game with over 100 characters, it could mean that the roster is going to be small, especially given Arc System Works’ track record. I took the liberty of completing the character select image based on its current layout, giving us a total of 17 characters. I also believe that 18 characters could be possible if the rows are evened out and they place an additional character next to Krillin. For all we know, once they exceed 17 confirmed characters, the roster layout page could change. But for now, we’ll stick to the current display.

CHARACTERS:

Now let’s dig a little deeper into the details of the character page. When viewing the file names on the website, you’ll notice that some characters have a suffix on their file names. For example, Goku and Vegeta have an “SS” at the end which seems to refer to their Super Saiyan forms while Trunks’ is just “Trunks” for some reason. Gohan has a “Y” which could imply “Young”, and Majin Buu has a “Z,” which I doubt stands for “Dragon Ball Z.” While on the subject of Buu, the “Z” suffix could hint that we’re getting either Kid Buu or Super Buu down the line. My guess is more on Kid Buu due to him being the more popular form of the character.

While I doubt they will add Kid Gohan, we can probably safely bet that Mystic Gohan will make an appearance in the game. As for Goku, considering that the SSJ3 transformation is already part of his moveset, I doubt that SSJ3 Goku will be added as a separate character, so the more obvious would be Super Saiyan Blue forms for both Goku and Vegeta. Or we could get a left-field pick like Kid Goku, a character we at ShonenGames would love to see in action. His file name could be similar to Gohan’s, that being “Goku-Y.” While we don’t know for sure what characters will be added into the game; the suffixes in the file names definitely seem to give the indication that there will be various versions of certain characters. If it wasn’t so, then character file names like Goku and Vegeta would be labeled the same way as Trunks’ file.

DLC:

Another point that I wanted to add is that based on the developer’s history, at least 4 of the 17 slots could be DLC characters that would likely be released during or around the first month of the game’s release. Some examples that I found include Leo Whitefang, who was announced before the game’s release and was available to download around two weeks after the game’s launch. There’s also Elphelt Valentine who released as free DLC during the game’s first three weeks, but later increased to 7.99 USD.

A similar situation happened with Marie, the new character from Persona 4 Golden; when she was announced as free DLC for the first few weeks on Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. Comparing Persona 4 Arena Ultimax‘s website around the time when it first launched, to the current version of the site, you can see that they only kept adding boxes and had an arrow to view the rest of the characters. Additionally, you can check out this archive on how Guilty Gear Xrd‘s character page looked in October 2014, compared to now. Based on previous cases, we assume that the Dragon Ball FighterZ character page could receive a similar treatment and follow a similar DLC pattern to previous Arc System Works games.

When it comes to releasing new fighting games, Arc System Works has a history of releasing a few characters during a series’ first entry, and continuously adding characters as the series expands. Guilty Gear took over five installments to get over twenty characters. We have game series like King of Fighters, which by King of Fighters 98, featured over 40 playable characters, and for King of Fighters, that was only the beginning. Even looking at games like Sengoku Basara X, which only released a few years after Sengoku Basara 2: Heroes, only went with 12 characters. The roster for Hokuto no Ken was small too, as it only had around 10 playable characters.

Then comes BlazBlue, easily one of their more popular franchises alongside Guilty Gear. When BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger was released for arcades in 2008, the game only featured 12 characters. BlazBlue: Continuum Shift only added 3 new characters to the base game, and another 3 over the span of a year as DLC.

Based on the information above; expecting Dragon Ball FighterZ to have over 20 characters off the bat might just be wishful thinking.