Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 Rises

As it always seems to happen right before big announcements in the U.S. lately, the European branch of a videogame company has gone ahead and spilled the beans early. This time, the revelation comes from the Infogrames-turned-Atari folks in the UK, who have gone ahead and officially announced the next member of the DBZ family, Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3. To be co-published with Bandai Europe when released in the old country near the end of the year, Dragon Ball Z Budokai 3 will once again be developed by the team at Dimps and will share several similarities with its last iteration. Though, exactly what those similarities are can still be left up to the imagination.

"Right from the start, our main aim was to create a faithful Dragon Ball Z video game experience," said Martin Spiess, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Atari Europe. "By working closely with Bandai throughout and hitting the high standards the franchise demands, we have seen the fan base grow beyond the hardcore Dragon Ball Z audience. With an incredibly strong 2004 product lineup on the way, it's a trend that looks set to continue."

"Atari's work to date has established Dragon Ball Z as a very significant franchise within the interactive entertainment industry. What most of our fans want are games that not only satisfy their devotion to the Dragon Ball Z universe, but also offer a great gameplay experience in their own right," said Naoki Eguchi of Bandai Europe. "Atari's skills in these areas means it is uniquely placed as a company to bring these elements together, and as a result continues to release fantastic DBZ games."

Despite this announcement that's no doubt great news for DBZ fans, several questions still remain unanswered. The exact details regarding the gameplay and design elements of Budokai 3, for instance, were not yet revealed; nor was any news concerning the upcoming Dragon Ball GT title announced at last year's E3 2003 Atari press conference. Where the storyline fits in with the rest of the DBZ sagas hasn't been mentioned either, but we suppose that's what this year's E3 is for anyway.

Unfortunately the U.S. division of Atari hasn't announced the game for American shores yet, but given the fact that the first two titles have sold more than 5.7 million units combined in the U.S. and Canada alone, that revelation is likely just days away. That said, you can expect us to return with more on Budokai 3 once that happens; and hopefully with the first batch of images and some concrete gameplay information to go along with it. See you soon.

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