Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero Release Date May Have Leaked
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero looks to be continuing a release date tradition this fall.
Dragon Ball fans have been expecting Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero to release at some point this year despite neither Bandai Namco nor Spike Chunsoft giving it so much as a release year, but if a new leak proves itself to be accurate, we may finally know when the new Dragon Ball game will release. According to some datamining efforts focused on Bandai Namco's site, it's been stated that Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero may be releasing later this year on October 1st for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms.
News of this supposed release date for Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero comes from the YouTuber SergioM3R (via DbsHype) whose channel sprang back to life this week with a new video talking about the leaked date. According to SergioM3R, information publicly available from datamining Bandai Namco's site indicates that Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero will be released on October 1st.
Based on SergioM3R's presentation of the information, different Bandai Namco games listed on the publisher's site are shown with entries specific to each game that include their title, a special ID for the game, and the release date. SergioM3R omitted some information about games that don't yet have release dates given that the topic here was focused only on Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. The YouTuber acknowledged that there were some slight inconsistencies with some of the information given that the release date for Elden Ring was inaccurate and doesn't line up with the release of the Elden Ring DLC Shadow of the Erdtree either, but aside from that and one other example, the rest of the dates line up perfectly which gives reason to believe the one for Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is accurate as well.
Aside from other dates in the datamine lining up with their respective games to support this claim, the supposed release date for Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero falls on a Tuesday which tracks for when games are sometimes released alongside Thursday and Friday releases. Tuesday would give Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero time to grant Friday early access to those who bought a special edition of the game if that's planned, too, though Bandai Namco hasn't indicated that there'll be an early access period for this Dragon Ball game.
It's also worth pointing out that the rest of the games in the series known in the West as Budokai Tenkaichi have all gotten October release dates in the past in Japan. The North American release dates have historically come slightly after the initial October release dates in past years, but considering how this Dragon Ball game is adopting the "Sparking!" name worldwide for the first time after that name was previously only seen in Japan, it follows that the game might conform to the release date tradition as well and be out everywhere in October.
Whether this release date is the one to believe in or not, we'll likely hear at least something more about Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero this summer amid all the Summer Game Fest events.