Despite only being in early access, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero has already overshot the peak player counts of major fighting game franchises.
Dragon Ball Sparking Zero brings the beloved Budokai Tenkaichi series out of a decade-long hiatus and if initial impressions are anything to go off, Bandai Namco was right to do so. Thanks to its massive roster of unlockable characters and branching story paths, our review in progress has a lot of good things to say.
Most prospective players knew the game was going to be something special thanks to the plethora of pre-release details but now that the game has launched in early access, we have some quantifiable data to prove that.
Tens of thousands of Dragon Ball Sparking Zero players have flocked to the game to get squashed by Great Ape Vegeta. Peak player counts in this early access period have swiftly beaten out fighting game giants including legendary franchises like Tekken, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat.
How many people are playing Dragon Ball Sparking Zero?
Dragon Ball Sparking Zero has amassed a peak concurrent player count of 91,005 on Steam, at the time of writing.
Despite only being in the three-day early access period available to players who purchased the Deluxe and Ultimate editions of the game, Dragon Ball Sparking Zero has become the second-most popular fighting game of all time on the platform.
The only fighting game it’s yet to eclipse is MultiVersus, the once-mega-poplar brawler bringing properties like Batman, Game of Thrones, and Adventure Time together under one combative roof.
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For comparison’s sake, below is a quick look at some of the biggest fighting games and how they’ve tracked on Steam:
- Street Fighter 6: 70,573 all-time concurrent peak
- Tekken 8: 49,977 all-time concurrent peak
- Mortal Kombat 1: 38,129 all-time concurrent peak
With Sparking Zero’s full launch set for October 11, and with word of mouth continuously spreading, we won’t have to wait long to see if it can soar to heights no other fighting game has before, at least on PC.
It’s obviously worth bearing in mind the only concrete figures we have to go off are for those playing on Steam. Historically, fighting games are often at home on consoles with arcade gamepads at the ready.
It’s safe to expect an even higher player count across Xbox and PlayStation, though until Banda Namco reveals sales figures, we won’t know how many players exactly.
Already, Sparking Zero is proving to be another smash hit for the publisher though. Expect to see numbers climbing in the coming days as more get their hands on the full release. We’ll be sure to update you here when new player count peaks are established.
