Jump Force looks amazing—but what is it, and what’s its plot? | E3 2018

Bandai Namco introduced a trailer for Jump Force, its brand new anime-inspired game, during Microsoft’s E3 press conference earlier today—and it left us wanting more.

Bandai Namco introduced a trailer for Jump Force, its brand new anime-inspired game, during Microsoft’s E3 press conference earlier today—and it left us wanting more.

The trailer doesn’t reveal much about what the game will be at first glance, but when you look closer, Bandai has left subtle hints about the story and how the game will play.

Jump Force appears to be a new fighting game that follows Bandai’s popular Jump VS. series, which brings a multitude of Shonen Jump characters together to duke it out in arenas based on the popular Manga titles. The trailer shows Goku, Naruto, and Luffy fighting in an open-arena setting using their powerful super moves.

After the initial short gameplay tease, all three characters clash against each other as the camera slowly pans out to reveal Light from the Death Note series alongside the Shinigami. This fighting stage seems to be in the United States since we can see the U.S. flag underneath Luffy’s feet during the character’s initial reveal.

It’s interesting to note, however, that Luffy’s ship, the Thousand Sunny, seems to be situated right beside this city. If you check the trailer, you can see what appears to be the same battleground beside the ship for a fraction of a second before it disappears.

This is a huge distinction from what we see in the opening minute of the trailer, when the camera pans through three different worlds based on Naruto and Dragon Ball, and it could be hinting at these characters being thrown into our world by some external force to try and save us from destruction. The map is surrounded by destruction and all of this could play into the story in some fashion.

The trailer also hints at this possibility when the narrator says that there are worlds that exist that are “different from our own” and that these worlds were “never meant to meet.” The possibility of a Shonen game that collides fiction with non-fiction seems likely at this point in time.