After more than a year since rollback netcode was promised to be coming toDragon Ball FighterZ, it looks like the game is just about ready for the long-awaited update… kind of.
Although rollback netcode is pretty much a necessity for mainstream fighting games nowadays, that hasn’t always been the case. One of the biggest and most popular games in the genre thatdidn’tlaunch with rollback netcode is Arc System Works' Dragon Ball FighterZ, which, despite being regarded as one of the best Dragon Ball games of all time, has some notoriously shoddy online play.
Dragon Ball fans spent four years after FighterZ launch begging for the studio to add rollback netcode to the game,and their prayers were finally answered at EVO 2022, where it was promised on stage that the feature was in the works and would soon be implemented.Cut to one whole year later and that still wasn’t the case, leaving fans wondering if they’d ever see their wish to Shenron granted.
Well, after what has felt like averylong year and three months, Bandai Namco has finally given us a concrete update on Dragon Ball FighterZ getting rollback netcode.In a video posted on the Dragon Ball Games Twitter account, producer Tomoko Hiroki revealed that Steam players are going to be able to take part in a public beta test for Rollback Netcode from November 30 to December 10.
Hiroki also took the chance to apologise to fans for the long wait, noting that the team really appreciates everyone’s patience and that Arc System Works has been working hard to “build a satisfying environment”, something that it believes it has now done. The beta test is currently only planned for Steam, so console players might just have to wait until the full release.
Although it’s certainly good news that we’re finally getting some kind of update on rollback netcode, as well as the chance to test it out for ourselves,some players have expressed disappointment that it’s still just a beta testand that we’re seemingly not getting the feature implemented properly until some time in 2024.
Even if rollback netcode isn’t quite ready like some fans hoped it would be, it’s still a positive step for the game that it’s this close to being put in the game. It’s certainly better than waiting any longer without an update, that’s for sure.
