Guide: Which region to pick in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2

Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 released on the Nintendo Switch today, and there’s a huge amount of content on offer. Because of this, it’ll be a little while before our review is ready, but in the meantime, players picking up the game will have a pretty big decision to make right away — which server region to pick.

When you first launch the game, you’ll be met with this screen:

You might notice that Australia isn’t on the list, which presents a dilemma, “Which region do I pick?” It might seem like a small decision, but there are a lot of factors at play here, so I’ll go through them one by one. Keep in mind that once you pick a region, you will not be able to change your region without deleting your save data, so choose carefully.

Japan

Japan is the obvious choice for a lot of players. It’s the closest country to Australia geographically, and since there’s a lot of online content in the game, the latency will be the lowest of the regions. For those wanting to play with friends, this will be the best choice.

However, lower latency will come at a cost. If you pick Japan as your region, all online community events will be written in Japanese, making it difficult to understand what the events are. This isn’t a huge issue, as events aren’t too common and don’t offer any meaningful rewards. That said, there is another issue: Players who pick Japan as their region will not be able to play any of the game with English voice acting. All of the menus, prompts, subtitles, and attack and item names will be in English, but the voice acting will always be set to Japanese, no matter if you’re playing online or offline.

It’s a bit stupid, especially since you are locked into the choice once you’ve made it, but that’s what we’ve got. If you don’t want to have to read in cutscenes, or just want familiar-sounding voice acting in the story mode, Japan is not the region for you. That said, if you want to play with friends online, Japan is probably your best bet.

The Americas

Thankfully, The Americas region offers the choice between both English and Japanese voice acting. The voice acting is really well done in either language, so those who want to play the story in English will definitely get a kick out of it, especially if they’re avid fans of the series.

Of course, there is a downside to this too. North America is the furthest region from Australia, and as such has the highest latency. Those who want to play with friends will have issues here; that’s not to say it’s unplayable as such, it just makes the online gameplay extremely difficult, with a lot of lag and other players jumping around a lot. It’s not a fun experience.

Players who are only really interested in the story and have little to no interest in playing online, and also prefer English voice acting, will find that The Americas server is the best choice.

Europe

Most of what I said about The Americas applies here too. Europe also offers the choice between English and Japanese voice acting, and like The Americas, subtitles are available in English no matter what VA language you choose. Europe is, however, still quite far away from Australia, meaning that latency will still be an issue. It’s not quite as bad as it is when choosing The Americas, but it’s far from the best online experience available.

That said, it’s a good option for players who prefer English voice acting but still want to play online occasionally. It’s a nice balance between the two, even if the experience isn’t perfect.

It’s a bit silly that languages are locked behind the region in which you play, and hopefully Bandai Namco Entertainment steps up and allows English voice acting in any region. Choice is always a good thing, and taking that choice away from players is disappointing at best.

In any case, with the choices being semi-permanent, it’s an important decision to make, as it will affect the entirety of your game, regardless of if you’re playing online or offline. Each region has its upsides and downsides, but hopefully this guide will help you come to the right decision for you and your friends.

Do you plan on picking up Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2? What do you think of Bandai Namco’s decision to exclude English VA from players in the Japan server region? Let us know in the comments below.