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Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour returns for Season 2

After a brief scare, Dragon Ball FighterZ announced plans to move forward with Season 2 of the DBFZ World Tour, starting at CEO 2019.

Ozzie Mejia

June 18, 2019 12:40 PM

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It's been an amazing couple of years for the Dragon Ball Z franchise and the world of video games. While publisher Bandai Namco is focusing on doing the property justice in the world of RPGs, let's not forget how they managed to pull off the same feat for fighting games just last year. Dragon Ball FighterZ was one of the most memorable games of 2018, both for casual fans and for the realm of esports. Both sides will be excited to hear that Dragon Ball FighterZ will be returning with a second World Tour.

First teased earlier in the month, Bandai Namco came out this week to confirm that the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour would indeed return. Following an exciting first season, this second round for DBFZ esports is set to begin at the end of this month at the CEO Fighting Game Championships in Daytona Beach, Florida. This year will operate a little differently with the tour only offering three winner-take-all Saga events. The season finals will have its other 13 slots filled through point standings, offline "Tenkaichi Events," and the Last Chance Qualifier. The three Saga events are EVO 2019, the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour Red Bull Saga Spain, and the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour Red Bull Saga Japan, with the winners getting automatic entries into the season finals in France. Defending champion Ryota "Kazunoko" Inoue will undoubtedly be the favorite heading into this new season.

This spells a bright future for Dragon Ball FighterZ esports after a brief scare at the end of last year. FighterZ had seen itself pulled from various shows, raising concerns that parent company Toei Animation had stepped in to put a stop to DBFZ esports exhibitions. These concerns were laid to rest by Tekken series producer Katsuhiro Harada at the end of December, in an announcement that also confirmed he had taken over as supervisor of the Bandai Namco Fighting Game Esports Strategy team.

The full schedule for this second season of the DBFZ World Tour has not been finalized, but look for the action to begin at CEO 2019. That event will run from June 28-30. More information can be found on the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour website. And for more on Dragon Ball FighterZ itself, be sure to check out our Year 1 retrospective with producer Tomoko Hiroki.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?