Pre-order Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2

In a lot of ways, the original Dragonball Xenoverse was the biggest Dragonball game. It had a huge cast of characters, a gigantic setting and an incredibly detailed create-a-character feature that let fans create their own custom characters to battle alongside the cast of Dragonball. It was also the best-selling Dragonball game of all time, likely for those exact reasons, so it's not a big surprise that Dragonball Xenoverse 2 is on the way. With the new Dragonball Super anime airing in Japanese, this is also the first time in years that there's an overabundance of Dragonball content that's not yet in games. At E3 2016, we got a chance to check out Xenoverse 2's new features.

One of the biggest changes is that the game now supports multiple hub worlds rather than just the Toki Toki City seen in the original game. There's a new hub city that was built by the Supreme Kai of Time to replace Toki Toki City, and it's bigger than ever. It's so big that the developers implemented new methods of travel. You'll unlock the ability to fly around the city, and certain parts of the hub are only accessible this way. You'll also unlock the ability to use vehicles that you can fly around the game world. In our demo, we saw a Capsule Corp hoverboard that players can use to race around the hub city. Each hub supports up to 300 individual players in the same area at once, and there are bunches of new ways to interact – yes, including the Vegeta Bingo Dance.

There are also new hub worlds that you can explore which aren't connected to the main hub, and we got only a brief glimpse of two. One was the planet Namek, where the Xenoverse Time Patroller was shown getting his potential unlocked by the Namek Elder Guru. The other was the inside of the evil Frieza's spaceship, where it seemed like the Time Patroller was able to take on undercover missions that involve supporting Frieza's forces. While we didn't get to see every available hub world, it's a safe bet that they'll be from locations across the Dragonball universe.

In our demo, we saw a fight between two new characters. One is Turles, the villain of the Dragonball Z movie, "Tree of Might." The other was Future Gohan, the version of Gohan from the Story of Trunks special. The latter still has both arms, but his fighting style and combat animations are specifically tailored to make the most of one arm instead of two. We're told there will be a number of new fighters not seen in the previous Xenoverse and even characters who've never before appeared in a Dragonball Z game, though the presenters were fairly mum on who those characters would be.

The combat has a lot in common with the last game. It looks a lot better, with new visual effects and a slightly redone graphics engine that makes the game look even more like the anime. The stages are also larger and more detailed, and there are more stages in the main story and in Versus mode. Combat has a lot of small tweaks. Evasion and movement has been improved, making it easier to get out of the way of attacks. Ki Blasts now "bend," which means they can track certain fast-moving enemies faster. There's also a special attack that can drain an enemy's stamina, preventing them from breaking out of your combo with a simple teleport

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a lot of information about other new features. The game will still have the same five races (Frieza Clan, Human, Majin, Namekian and Saiyan) from the first game, and there's no word on what, if any, changes will be made to the equipment or leveling systems. However, the developers said they're taking player feedback into account and are determined to support the game into the distant future. This will include content patches both free and paid, balance updates, tournaments and other often-requested features.

Dragonball Xenoverse 2 is still in development, but what we've seen of it so far seems to be a continuation of a winning formula. It's bigger and more content-packed, and it's clear they're taking a lot of fan input to heart. The new hub worlds look infinitely more traversable and fun. We'll have to wait to see how Xenoverse 2 pans out, but it's a game with a lot of potential. Dragonball Xenoverse 2 will be coming out for the PS4, Xbox One and Steam later this year.