Dragonball Xenoverse’s World Champion Will Be Determined Very Soon

It seems weird that there isn’t a digital Dragonball champion, but the Dragonball Xenoverse World Tournament looks to rectify that.

Maybe it’s because the previous Dragonball games hadn’t gotten the same amount of traction Dragonball Xenoverse has. I remember playing an hour with a preview build last year and discovered it was far, far better than I expected.

People on Steam are pretty happy with the game as well, which is nice considering the sometimes sketchy track record ports of anime fighters have on PC. Xenoverse is sitting comfy with a 89% rating from over 7,270 reviews, while SteamSpy says the game has almost 320,000 owners on PC.

That’s not a bad result if you’re not factoring in console sales or the Asian market. So it makes sense Bandai Namco and DIMPS, the Osaka based developer responsible for Xenoverse and the Dragon Ball Z: Budokai games, would use the game’s online functionality to hold a tournament.

Players have been waiting a while — the game came out in late February — and as of today, the beta for the World Tournament began.

The beta phase won’t count to your final result but it will allow everyone to get accustomed to the format until August 25, when the qualification rounds for the World Tournament begin in earnest. The top 4 players from Europe, Japan and North America — the latter being the only region Australians can compete in — will then go into a final online single-elimination bracket to be held on September 5 and 12.

What do the winners of their respective regions get? It’s not a million dollars, sadly, but Bandai Namco will create custom backgrounds and themes for all platforms using their champions, which is a cool alternative. It’s certainly a tad cooler than getting the 7 Dragon Balls — in-game — and a Hercule badge for their avatar.

If you’re interested in competing, you might want to check out the rules and regulations. It notes that you have to be able to receive messages from the Tournament organisers, but they won’t respond to individual messages. Hope everything runs smoothly, then.