Dragon Ball Gekishin Squadra reveals Season 7 and a complete year-end overhaul

Bandai Namco Entertainment has presented the future of Dragon Ball Gekishin Squadra in a substantial SQUADRA Talk broadcast covering Season 7, the game’s first anniversary and a year-end overhaul that will fundamentally rebuild its battle system.

Season 7 begins on September 9, 2026, exactly one year after the free-to-play title launched on consoles, PC and mobile devices. Its immediate content includes Super Gogeta as a new playable hero, Android 19 as a Technical-role Helper and San-Shinron as a new boss. However, the more consequential announcement concerns what will happen after the anniversary campaign ends.

Rather than delivering another collection of balance adjustments, Bandai Namco and developer Ganbarion are preparing to replace the game’s current top-down format with a closer third-person perspective. Maps, victory conditions, character roles, abilities, progression and customization are also being reconsidered.

The studio describes the project as an overhaul rather than a normal update, and that terminology is justified. When the new ruleset launches—currently targeted for the end of 2026—the existing version will no longer be available.

Super Gogeta leads the first-anniversary season

Season 7 will introduce Super Gogeta, the fusion warrior created when Goku and Vegeta successfully perform the Fusion Dance. His selection as the anniversary hero is unsurprising: Gogeta is one of the franchise’s most recognizable characters and gives Bandai Namco an appropriately prominent addition with which to headline the milestone.

The SQUADRA Talk announcement also confirmed Android 19 as a new Helper associated with the Technical role. Helpers operate differently from the main playable heroes, providing additional strategic effects rather than occupying the central fighter position.

San-Shinron will meanwhile join the game as a boss encounter. Beginning with Season 7, the available boss lineup will rotate every two weeks, creating a more regular cadence for PvE objectives and giving players an additional reason to revisit the game throughout the season.

Season 7 starts before the year-end overhaul and therefore serves as both an anniversary celebration and the closing chapter of Gekishin Squadra’s original ruleset. Players will receive new content and events under the current structure while Ganbarion prepares the significantly different version that follows.

Seven anniversary campaigns expand the seasonal rewards

Bandai Namco has planned seven major campaigns for the first anniversary, with the most immediately valuable offering allowing players to open as many as 140 free G-Capsules.

The “Open Up to 140 Capsules! Open 5 a Day! Free G-Capsules” campaign will be divided into two periods during Season 7. Its daily allocation resets, meaning players will need to participate consistently if they want to claim the maximum number rather than expecting all 140 openings to become available at once.

Other anniversary initiatives include a dedicated Anniversary Celebration G-Capsule, login rewards and the 1st Anniversary Party Hat. Special Passes are also included in the seasonal plan, although the complete contents and progression requirements for every pass have not yet been detailed in the written announcement.

The GEKISHIN Rules Play Campaign begins on September 9 and adds a special SP Cell Jr. to matches. It will later be joined by the Lucky Box Battle event, in which teams collect Lucky Boxes together for opportunities to earn different rewards.

Bandai Namco is planning further additions for the second half of Season 7 and the period approaching the overhaul. The published roadmap includes Halloween-themed Skin Bundles, more Special Passes, additional campaigns and in-game tournaments.

The quantity of anniversary content is considerable, but much of it follows a familiar live-service structure based on daily participation, capsules, passes and limited-time events. Super Gogeta and the rotating bosses are the more substantial playable additions; the remaining campaigns primarily reinforce retention and reward collection.

The year-end update is closer to a relaunch

The headline change planned for the end of 2026 is a completely different camera perspective. Gekishin Squadra currently presents its 4v4 battles from above, reflecting the game’s MOBA-inspired origins and allowing players to observe objectives, allies and approaching enemies across a relatively broad section of the battlefield.

The overhaul will move the camera behind the player-controlled character, creating a closer, third-person view. Bandai Namco says the intention is to make combat more dynamic, improve immersion and better communicate the intensity expected from a Dragon Ball battle.

Portions of the visuals will be updated to support this new presentation. Character models, attacks and customization items will occupy considerably more screen space, allowing details that could be difficult to appreciate from the original top-down angle to become more visible.

This is not merely a cosmetic camera option. Perspective determines how players process information, aim attacks, follow allies and understand the battlefield. Moving closer to the character reduces the amount of surrounding space visible at any moment, potentially making individual exchanges more immediate while requiring new solutions for team awareness and off-screen threats.

Maps and combat rules will therefore be redesigned alongside the camera. The developers are aiming for simpler victory conditions and a more action-oriented experience while claiming that teamwork and strategic decision-making will remain important.

Whether that balance can be maintained will be one of the overhaul’s defining questions.

Bandai Namco openly acknowledges a player-understanding problem

The accompanying developer letter provides an unusually direct explanation for the redesign. According to the development team, Gekishin Squadra’s strategic depth and knowledge-dependent systems created a significant gap between its strongest players and the rest of the audience.

Newcomers could encounter one-sided matches without properly understanding why they were losing. The combination of character-specific knowledge, objectives, roles, progression and MOBA-style battlefield awareness consequently produced a high barrier to competitive participation.

The developers concluded that the resulting experience did not fully meet player expectations. That admission is important because it frames the overhaul as a response to a structural retention problem, not simply an attempt to refresh the presentation after one year.

Public reception provides some additional context, although it cannot explain every factor behind the decision. At the time of consultation, the game’s English-language Steam reviews were classified as “Mixed,” with 61% of 5,778 reviews marked positive. Recent Steam sentiment was lower, at 45% positive across 376 reviews. Those figures only cover one storefront and should not be treated as a complete measurement of the console or mobile audience, but they do indicate meaningful dissatisfaction among a portion of the PC community.

The overhaul is therefore both a creative decision and a retention strategy. Bandai Namco wants to make the game easier to understand, more immediately recognizable as a Dragon Ball experience and less dependent on knowledge accumulated through many hours of play.

A closer camera could strengthen the Dragon Ball fantasy

The change has a clear potential advantage. Dragon Ball combat is defined by expressive characters, rapid movement, dramatic impacts and oversized signature attacks. A distant camera helps players understand a tactical battlefield, but it can diminish the visual importance of the fighters themselves.

Moving behind the character should allow transformations, energy attacks and close-range exchanges to occupy more of the screen. It can also give cosmetics greater visibility, making skins, entrance animations and other customization purchases feel more relevant during actual matches.

Bandai Namco has confirmed that the overhaul will expand customization and introduce MAX Super Attacks. These can be equipped in place of existing Super Attacks, adding another way to modify how a hero looks and performs.

The idea fits the closer presentation. A more cinematic camera can give a premium attack animation much greater impact than the current overhead view. It also aligns Gekishin Squadra more closely with the visual language established by other action-focused Dragon Ball games.

That familiarity may help newcomers understand the experience more quickly. A player approaching the game because they want to control Goku, Vegeta or Gogeta may respond more positively to direct third-person combat than to a battlefield requiring traditional MOBA awareness.

Accessibility may come at the cost of the original identity

The risk is equally substantial. Gekishin Squadra distinguished itself by translating Dragon Ball into a team-oriented, objective-driven format rather than competing directly with the franchise’s existing arena fighters.

Replacing the top-down camera, redesigning maps, simplifying victory conditions and restructuring roles could make the game more approachable. It could also remove the qualities that attracted players specifically interested in its strategic identity.

This is especially sensitive because the original ruleset will not remain as an alternative mode. Once the overhaul arrives, existing players will not be able to choose between the classic and redesigned versions. They must either accept the new direction or leave.

Maintaining two complete rulesets would divide matchmaking populations, multiply balance work and increase development costs, particularly for a game operating across consoles, PC and mobile. Retiring the old system is therefore understandable from a production perspective. It is nevertheless a serious commitment because it removes the possibility of returning to the original design if the new version proves divisive.

Calling the project an overhaul is more transparent than presenting it as a routine update, but the developers will need to demonstrate that the new format retains meaningful coordination. If simplification reduces matches to loosely organized individual fights, Gekishin Squadra could lose the team-based foundation that justified its existence.

Roles will become less restrictive

The current game divides heroes among Damage, Tank and Technical roles. Each category serves a recognizable team function: Damage characters concentrate on offensive pressure, Tanks absorb punishment and control space, while Technical heroes support allies or disrupt opponents.

According to the developer letter, role-based performance differences sometimes discourage players from selecting their favorite characters. Someone may want to use a particular hero because of their attachment to the character, only to discover that the team composition demands another role.

The overhaul will simplify this system and allow players greater freedom when selecting heroes. Bandai Namco has not yet provided a complete replacement structure, so it is unclear whether roles will disappear, become softer classifications or remain present with fewer exclusive responsibilities.

Greater flexibility makes sense for a licensed game whose roster is one of its primary attractions. Players do not necessarily want to abandon a favorite character because matchmaking has produced an inconvenient composition.

However, distinct roles also make cooperation legible. If every hero becomes broadly self-sufficient, team composition may become less restrictive but also less meaningful. The redesign needs to create freedom without making heroes interchangeable.

Character acquisition and long-term progression are also being rebuilt

Bandai Namco has acknowledged that character acquisition and the game’s interconnected progression systems can be difficult to understand. The team intends to simplify hero acquisition while expanding longer-term systems for players who want sustained progression.

Those goals are not automatically compatible. Making essential characters easier to obtain can reduce frustration, but adding new long-term systems may recreate the same complexity elsewhere if the currencies, upgrades and reward tracks are not clearly organized.

The anniversary’s free capsules may temporarily reduce acquisition pressure, yet they do not resolve the underlying design issue. A permanent solution requires players to understand what they are earning, how long a desired unlock will take and whether spending resources now could disadvantage them later.

No final post-overhaul economy has been published. It would therefore be premature to claim that character acquisition will become more generous. The confirmed commitment is to make it simpler; the exact cost, pace and conversion of resources remain open questions.

Existing items remain the most sensitive unresolved issue

The transition creates an obvious problem for players who have invested time or money in the current version. Characters, cosmetics, currencies and other rewards were acquired for systems that are now being redesigned or removed.

Bandai Namco says earned items will be treated with appropriate consideration and has indicated that more information about item and player-data handling will be shared. However, the written developer letter does not yet provide a final conversion table covering every asset category.

That uncertainty matters because Season 7 will continue offering capsules, passes, cosmetics and campaign rewards shortly before the overhaul. Players need to know whether each purchase or unlock will transfer directly, be converted into something else or lose part of its original function.

A cosmetic designed for a distant camera might actually become more visible in the new version, but other items could depend on mechanics that no longer exist. Helpers, role-related assets and ability customization may require particularly careful treatment if their associated systems change substantially.

Bandai Namco should publish the complete migration policy before asking players to commit heavily to the final months of the current ruleset. A general promise to respect earned items is positive, but it is not a substitute for precise information.

Season 7 and the overhaul are two different releases

The announcement’s structure could easily cause confusion, so the timetable is important.

Season 7 launches on September 9 with Super Gogeta, Android 19, San-Shinron, rotating bosses and the first-anniversary campaigns. This content arrives before the overhaul and remains connected to the current game.

The new camera, redesigned rules, altered maps, simplified roles, progression changes and expanded customization are planned for after the anniversary campaign, with Bandai Namco targeting the end of 2026. The publisher has not announced a precise release date for that transition.

Further information will be distributed throughout the remaining months of the year, and players can submit questions through the official Dragon Ball Gekishin Squadra Discord server.

The game remains available as a free-to-play release on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC through Steam, iOS and Android.

A necessary but exceptionally risky transformation

Season 7 offers an extensive anniversary celebration, but it will inevitably be overshadowed by the knowledge that the current version of Gekishin Squadra is approaching retirement.

Super Gogeta, free capsules and rotating bosses may bring players back in September. The year-end overhaul will determine whether they remain. Bandai Namco and Ganbarion are attempting to address real problems: an intimidating knowledge gap, uneven matches, restrictive roles and a presentation that does not always capture the energy of Dragon Ball combat.

The proposed solutions are coherent, but they amount to replacing much of the game’s original identity. A third-person action experience may reach a broader audience, yet accessibility alone will not guarantee stronger retention. Combat must remain readable, teamwork must still matter and existing players must feel that their time and purchases have been respected.

The developer letter deserves credit for acknowledging the shortcomings behind the decision. The harder task begins now: proving that the new Gekishin Squadra is more than a visually exciting simplification of the old one.