Dragon Ball Online

Dragon Ball Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game set 216 years after the conclusion of the Dragon Ball manga, in Age 1000. Players create a character from one of three playable races: Humans, Namekians, or the game-original Majin race. Each race offers two starting core classes oriented toward physical or spiritual damage, with two optional master classes branching from each core path, yielding six core classes and twelve total master class options. Characters begin as children and mature into adults upon completing a milestone mission at Korin Tower.

The game world is a fully persistent open environment where players explore recreated locations from the Dragon Ball manga, including Mount Paozu, Kame House, Fire Mountain, Korin Tower, and West City. Standard MMORPG progression applies, with enemies dropping experience and currency that fund character advancement and equipment purchases. Combat incorporates universal skills available to all races, including Dash for rapid movement, Flight with a regenerating Air Points meter, Guard with counter-attack potential, and Power Up for building the resource needed to activate high-tier HTB skills. Transformations including Super Saiyan, Great Namekian, and Pure Majin states are obtainable through skill development and Dragon Ball wishes, granting substantial power increases.

Time Machine Quests represent the game's most distinctive feature, sending players back in time under the guidance of Time Patrol Trunks to participate in landmark moments from Dragon Ball history. Scouters function as in-world tools for measuring enemy and NPC power levels, maintaining one of the franchise's most iconic pieces of technology as a practical gameplay element. The Kaio-ken technique is available to all classes at a risk, draining both health and energy while temporarily enhancing critical strike chance with each multiplication tier.

Dragon Ball Online's story was developed with direct creative involvement from Akira Toriyama, who contributed to and supervised the narrative, art design, character designs, and location arrangements. Every element of the game required Toriyama's approval before inclusion, giving the project a level of canonical authenticity unusual for a licensed MMORPG. The story occurs 250 years after the events of the manga and depicts a world transformed by the legacy of the Dragon Ball Z era: Majin Buu has created a family, spawning the new Majin race; Namekians have resettled on Earth after Mira destroyed New Namek; and multiple martial arts schools founded by Krillin, Tien Shinhan, and Goten and Trunks have brought ki training to the general public.

The central antagonist is Mira, a villain seeking Goku's genetic material through time travel and mind control, with the remnants of the Frieza Force and the Red Pants Army serving as allied factions. Trunks becomes a Time Patrolman to counter Mira's temporal interference after being warned by the Supreme Kai of Time. The game is notable for adhering to the manga's continuity rather than the anime adaptation, depicting details such as Trunks' purple hair, Korin's blue fur, and Namekian hands with four fingers instead of five.

Dragon Ball Online was simultaneously developed in Japan and South Korea by NTL, with the Korean server launching on February 5, 2010, followed by Taiwan on June 15, 2011, and Hong Kong on September 8, 2011. Toriyama had been working on character designs for the project for five years before 2008. Beta testing in South Korea was originally announced for summer 2007 but was delayed until April 2009 due to development challenges. The game served as a significant source of lore and character designs that were later adapted into Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2, and Dragon Ball Heroes.

Both the Korean and the Taiwanese and Hong Kong servers closed in 2013, ending the game's official operational period. Despite its shutdown, Dragon Ball Online's narrative contributions have proven lasting: Mira, Towa, the Time Patrol concept, and the Majin race designs introduced in DBO became foundational elements of the Dragon Ball gaming universe that persisted well beyond the game's closure.