Publisher Bandai Namco has unveiled some of the details of the brand-new Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour, which is set to launch at the CEO Fighting Game Championships on June 29 in Daytona Beach, Florida. A big twist is one player could win an automatic bye to the grand finals by winning all seven tournaments leading into the final event.
Bandai Namco is serious when it says this will be a world tour, with Saga events at Ultimate Fighting Arena in France, Thunderstruck in Mexico, Southeast Asia Major in Singapore and VS Fighting in the UK. Locations for the Australia and Japan events have yet to be announced. There will be online events as well, but there are no details yet as to how that will work. A deal with Twitch was also announced, making it the exclusive streaming partner for the FighterZ World Tour.
"I'm happy to see some less-represented regions get Saga events for the tour," Panda Global's Derek "Nakkiel" Brusca said in a statement to ESPN. "DBFZ has brought a lot of communities together for the game and I think the tour will help keep that going. I'll be participating in what I can and I'm aiming to be in the finals bracket at the end."
Bandai Namco will kick in an extra $5,000 pot bonus to each event, with a $25,000 pot bonus for the world tour finals. Players who win a tournament will win a dragon ball. The more dragon balls a player has, the higher they will be seeded in the world tour finals. According to the world tour website, if a player wins all seven dragon balls, meaning they win every Saga event around the world, they will be given an automatic bye to the world tour grand finals. That means that regardless of their performance, they will be walking away with at least a second-place trophy.
"Dragon Ball FighterZ is a massive international success and fans around the world have been clamoring for an official tournament series built around the game," Eric Hartness, vice president of marketing for Bandai Namco Entertainment America, said in a press release. "With the Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tour, Bandai Namco Entertainment and Twitch are doubling down to create an epic worldwide tournament series of Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan proportions. We can't wait to see the epic battles that will surely emerge from our highly skilled Dragon Ball FighterZ global player pool."
The world tour will funnel into the finals event, held in January 2019. There will also be a last-chance qualifier event right before the world tour finals. An exact date or location has not been set.