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Dragon Ball creator’s manga Sand Land is getting a video game adaptationTank combat and mutants
Tank combat and mutants
Akira Toriyama is best known for creatingDragon Ball, which I haven’t read or watched, and for contributing character designs toChrono Triggerand theDragon Questseries, which I haven’t played. He’s now working with Bandai Namco on an adaptation ofSand Landhowever, one of his lesser-known mangas, and it’s got tanks, mutants, and vast open deserts.
Here’s a trailer, shown during this evening’s Summer Games Fest:
SAND LAND — Game Announcement TrailerWatch on YouTube
SAND LAND — Game Announcement Trailer
Players control a character called Beelzebub in “a desert world where both humans and demons suffer from an extreme water shortage.” It features third-person character combat as well as vehicular combat. I like the mixture in the trailer of vast open spaces, tank combat, and what looks like sneaking into settlements via high-wire climbing. If these moments are dynamic - as in, you encounter and engage with those tank convoys when you choose to - then that seems like it would be fun.
If Sand Land looks familiar, that’ll be because Bandai Namco announced the “Sand Land project” in December last year. It’s a “project” because it’s not just a game, but also includes an animation as a co-production between Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc. and Shueisha Inc. They released a trailer forthat animationalongside that announcement, where the art looks, sadly, better than in the game.
