The Perfect 20-Minute Break
You know that feeling when you’ve been sitting in the World of Warcraft Party Finder for 45 minutes, refreshing, re-posting your key, and still nothing? That’s when I open Dragon Ball Gekishin Squadra. Turns out I’m not alone in this either. A few friends are in the exact same boat, and we’ve ended up in Squadra lobbies together more times than any of us planned. And honestly, I’m glad we have it.
Dragon Ball Gekishin Squadra launched September 2025 and I’ve been dipping in and out of it ever since. It’s not my main game. It’s not trying to be. It’s the game I load up when I need something fast, fun, and immediately satisfying without any commitment. One or two matches and I’m usually done, then I go back to whatever else I was doing. That’s exactly the role it fills in my rotation and it fills it well.
What Is It Actually
If you haven’t heard of it, Squadra is Dragon Ball’s first proper team-oriented multiplayer game. Think 4v4 team battles from a top-down perspective with MOBA-lite mechanics. You pick a hero, level up mid-match by defeating enemies, unlock stronger abilities as the game progresses, and work with your team to take down the opposing squad and their boss characters.
Heroes split into three roles: Damage (aggressive, high output), Tank (front line, soaks hits, holds space), and Technical (support, disruption, team buffs). Each match has a natural rhythm to it where early skirmishes lead into a messy, escalating team fight as everyone gets stronger. Games run maybe 10-15 minutes. It feels snappy.
The DBZ presentation is exactly what you’d want. Characters look great, skills feel true to the source material, and if you grew up watching the anime or reading the manga, there’s a constant low-level dopamine hit of seeing your favourite characters doing their thing in a new context. I’ve read the manga, watched everything from Z through Super, sat through GT and the movies. I’m exactly the target audience and they know it.
My Hero: SS2 Caulifla
My go-to is Super Saiyan 2 Caulifla and I’ve been running her as my Tank ever since I pulled her. She’s a great fit for how I like to play: get in, draw attention, make space for the team, and let the Damage heroes clean up. It also helps that most of my friends who play it too also gravitate toward DPS, so someone has to fill Tank and it may as well be me with a character I actually enjoy. Tank queues are also noticeably faster than DPS queues, which matters a lot when the whole point of opening this game is to get into something quickly.
Fair warning though: if you want to play Damage characters, the queue situation is genuinely rough. The community has been complaining about 10-30 minute waits for DPS roles since Season 1 and it hasn’t fully been solved. Which is a bit ironic given that I come to this game to escape long queues. Playing Tank is just the smarter move right now.
Season 4 just dropped in March with SSG Goku, SSG Vegeta, and Broly joining the roster, so the character pool keeps growing. They’ve been consistent about adding new heroes and running events each season, which gives regulars something to look forward to.
Is It F2P Friendly
Yes, cleanly. Gameplay is completely free. The heroes you earn through playing are the same heroes you could buy, there’s no pay-to-win character gate. Spending real money gets you cosmetics through the Capsule system: skins, entrance animations, finisher animations. All visual, nothing that affects how matches actually play out. Twitch Drops and in-game campaigns also give out free capsules regularly if you’re keeping up with events.
It’s one of the cleaner F2P implementations in the genre, especially when it by Bandai Namco.
Is It Worth Playing
If you’re a DBZ fan looking for something to fill short gaming windows, yes, absolutely. It’s free, it’s fast, and it scratches a very specific itch that no other Dragon Ball game has tried before. The production quality is solid, the character roster is growing, and four seasons later, the developers are still actively supporting it.
Just go in knowing what it is. It’s a palette cleanser, not a main dish. Play a match or two, have fun, move on. Ignore the Steam reviews, the game is free, good mixed bad, download it, find our yourself. I get why it’s mixed, DPS queue times are a real problem, some character balance is rough, and it’s not going to replace anything in your main rotation. But for what it is? It’s a good time.
