Mario Bautista
I know that any new Dragon Ball game is going to generate a lot of excitement. I also know that fighting game fans will always flock to any newcomer in the genre. But I really didn’t expect Dragon Ball Sparking Zero to come out the gates quite this hot. It’s been just a few hours since its early access period began and it’s already become one of the biggest fighting games to ever land on Steam, according to concurrent player count data.
It’s been a long old time since Dragon Ball’s Budokai Tenkaichi fighting game subseries got a new entry, but the wait is now finally over. Even though the full Dragon Ball Sparking Zero release date isn’t until October 11, excited players are already flooding to the game right at the start of its three-day early access window.
In its opening hours, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero has achieved a peak concurrent player count on Steam of just over 91,000 people. While that’s an impressive number for any game, it’s particularly mind-blowing for a fighting game – you’ll often find the biggest audiences for those games over on the console side, rather than PC.
So, despite not even being fully out yet, Sparking Zero has achieved higher peak player counts on Steam than any entry from the ‘big three’ fighting game franchises of Street Fighter, Tekken, and Mortal Kombat. Even other hits like Guilty Gear strive can’t come close. From what I can see after digging through the data, there’s only one fighting game that’s achieved a higher peak on Valve’s platform, and that’s MultiVersus which topped out at 153,000 when it launched for the first time back in 2022.
There’s every chance as we approach both its full launch and the weekend that we see Sparking Zero’s player count surge even higher, surpass MultiVersus, and steal its crown as Steam’s biggest fighting game ever. We’ll keep an eye on the numbers and keep you posted.
This remarkable turn out has also solidified Sparking Zero as the biggest Dragon Ball game to ever grace Steam, surpassing Dragon Ball FighterZ.
It seems that these tens of thousands of players aren’t just going to be fuelled by Dragon Ball hype alone – developer Spike Chunsoft appears to have made an absolute banger of a brawler here. Steam user reviews currently sit at a ‘very positive’ 93% rating, while review aggregators Metacritic and OpenCritic have compiled the critics’ verdicts and both display an 82 rating.
If you’re thinking about jumping in, or you’re already going Super Saiyan with Goku, be sure to check out our guide on Dragon Ball Sparking Zero wishes and find out how to unlock all Dragon Ball Sparking Zero characters.
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