Namco Bandai announced its latest and potentially greatest mobile game during the Games Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Dragon Ball Legends will be coming later this year for iOS and Android. It will be a rare player versus player mobile game in that you will be able to fight against anyone else in the world in real time.

We've had a play with an early build ourselves, which you can read about in our hands-on, but here's everything we know about Dragon Ball Legends - including information on how and when you get your own hands on it yourself.

Bandai Namco 2018 mobile game line-up: Here are the trailers of Dragon Ball Legends and more

What is Dragon Ball Legends?

Dragon Ball Legends is a mobile fighting game for iOS and Android.

In it, you get to choose three characters from an ever-growing selection and fight against another player in real time. As each character is beaten, the next takes their position and so on. The winner is the first person to defeat all three fighters in his or her opponent's team.

Leaderboard rankings and more will depend on bouts won.

There will also be game modes with CPU opponents: a story mode and quick battle (full names yet to be revealed).

The in-game graphics are rendered in 3D and look gorgeous. However, if you have an older or lesser spec'ed smartphone, you can drop the graphics setting to be less hardware intensive. This will also save on battery power.

The game can be played over Wi-Fi or a mobile internet connection. The single-player modes can be played when offline.

Dragon Ball Legends gameplay: How does it play?

Fighting games don't often work on mobile platforms as they require control over multiple buttons and perfect timing to pull off the best moves or blocks.

Dragon Ball Legends, though, can be played with just one finger as complicated combos and moves have been reduced to taps and swipes. Basic attacks can be unleashed by just tapping the screen, while dodging enemy attacks is enabled through simple swipes.

For more complicated moves and combos, Dragon Ball Legends uses a card battle system. Four cards appear and replenish during fights. Each has a separate attack of varying power and cost to your fighter's energy. You can chain them together to form impressive combos and some of the cards represent very powerful special moves.

Each character in the game has a different card set to draw on and they appear randomly during battles.

There will be many characters appearing in the game - the entire Dragon Ball universe will be available eventually, we were told. The initial starter set will be bolstered through earned or purchased characters later down the line.

Dragon Ball Legends release date

Dragon Ball Legends will be released for iOS and Android this summer. An exact release date is yet to be revealed.

You can pre-register for more information closer to release on both Apple App Store and Google Play, for your respective device.

Bandai Namco is also hosting a closed beta for the public to try out the game before launch. However, you only have until 2am Tuesday 27 March to apply to take part. It is also only available to Android device owners. Find out more here.

Dragon Ball Legends price: How much will it cost?

Dragon Ball Legends is a free-to-play game in that you can get an excellent experience from it without shelling out any money.

There will be in-app purchases, however, with character packs and other downloadable content being available as real-world purchases.

Pocket-lint was told that much of the content will also be unlockable through play.

What effect does Google Cloud Platform have on Dragon Ball Legends? 

To run its real-time fighting game, Bandai Namco has chosen Google's Cloud Platform to match and host fights on a worldwide basis. This will make for a truly global game, where you can play anyone anywhere on Earth, with very little latency.

Most PVP mobile titles either use local or regional servers to connect players, therefore restricting opponents to those in Europe or the US and the like. But, thanks to the Cloud Platform, all matches will be hosted on the same servers, making the game truly global.

In addition, other PVP games pitch players again other players' data rather than the player him or herself. Namco Bandai promises that, in Dragon Ball Legends, players will always fight each other.

Latency is kept to a minimum thanks to tens of billions of dollars Google has invested in laying cables across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, plus many stretching across continents.

You might be playing over Wi-Fi or mobile connection, but much of the data is transferred through superfast cabling

The game itself will host the same characters as the main Dragon Ball series, with players taking on three fighters each and trying to dispatch the rival trio.

 

Dragon Ball Legends gameplay trailers

An official launch trailer is available which you can see below.

There is also gameplay footage, which was also supplied by Bandai Namco.

Where can I find out more about Dragon Ball Legends?

An official Dragon Ball Legends website can be found here: dble.bn-ent.net.

You can also catch up with the Bandai Namco mobile launch event held during GDC on 20 March by viewing the replay video below. It highlights several Bandai Namco mobile games and more info on Dragon Ball Legends.