Previously, on Dragon Ball Z: A tournament… canceled? Is it the work of Frieza attempting to thwart the Z Fighters once again? Sadly, this time it’s just more coronavirus-related delays coming down hard on the esports community. The delay hammer comes down this time on Bandai Namco’s super-popular Dragon Ball FighterZ. A planned online-only tournament, meant as a replacement for the now-canceled 2020 World Tour series, has now also been delayed according to the Bandai Namco Esports Twitter account. At least if it had been Frieza then we could have heard some good old-fashioned villain monologing.
Stay tuned for future updates! #DBFZ pic.twitter.com/sCKTie1kFT
— BANDAI NAMCO ESPORTS (@BNEesports) July 1, 2020
Bandai Namco said back in March for the initial cancellation of the World Tour, “Out of an abundance of care and caution for the health and safety of tournament participants and staff, Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. has made the difficult decision to cancel official support for all remaining physical tournament events in the 2020 season for Tekken, SoulCalibur, and Dragon Ball FighterZ World Tours respectively.” Three Tekken 7 World Tour and SoulCalibur 6 World Tour events were also canceled back in March, meaning that the pandemic has essentially shut down the Bandai Namco-side of the FGC–made even more of a bummer by the fact that this online-replacement is now also, even if temporarily, getting its own delay.
Of course, the company’s statement doesn’t directly blame COVID and instead says “We are experiencing some unforeseen delays in the preparation of the online tournament that was supposed to be announced in June.” My own assessment of that statement is that the game’s famously shoddy net code is also to blame, given that online-only tournaments across multiple games have suffered from unstable connections, leading to competitors dropping out of competition or refusing to compete against players with poor connections.
We’ll bring more information on the status of this tournament as it becomes available, but I wouldn’t expect to go Super Saiyan any time soon.
