Are you one of those people who were excited about a new Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot DLC only to have their hopes crushed like a Saiyan pod crash in West City? You are not the only one. Fans wanted The Bardock – Alone Against Fate DLC to be the plot of their life, a heartfelt voyage to one of the most epic stories of the franchise. Instead, it has packed a punch of bugs, glitches, and various other tech issues that even the mighty Z-fighters are running out of Senzu Beans because of.
Before it was finally released, people couldn’t get enough of the Bardock DLC. The concept of doing terrible things in Frieza’s army as Bardock was what the fans got hyped for. Unfortunately, from the very first moment, the problems were appearing all over the community. According to GameRant report, PC users were in situations where the voices and texts were not only that the characters were not playing, but also the characters were missing. Some had their camera stuck at Vegeta’s feet, while others were not able to start the game even after the latest updates. Those who have deliberately chosen to finish the DLC in around 90 minutes without doing side-quests have turned their quick nostalgic trip into a frustrating grind due to the presence of these bugs.
Sadly, Bardock’s buggy release is only the latest in a series of issues that have been bothering Kakarot. Save data corruption has been a recurring bugbear since earlier DLCs, such as Battle of Gods and Trunks: The Warrior of Hope. Players have written horror stories on GameFAQs of losing a full playthrough—one even fell from a level 300 Goku to level 89 after a save file was corrupted. And the worst part? There is still no way to disable auto-save, which might have saved some of these losses. As one gamer put it, all Bandai Namco has to do is provide us with a manual save option—but that request remains on Shenron’s to-do list.
When you factor in the platform-specific issues, the situation couldn’t be much worse. In general, the base game on the Nintendo Switch is still okay—it’s just that after you have reached the post-game area, where crashing becomes shockingly frequent, especially if you are in docked mode. What is amusing is that the DLC is actually running better, but if you switch back to the main game, it crashes so frequently that you can barely play. Some people have discovered that if they switch to handheld mode or turn the console off between playing sessions, they get a little relief, which could indicate memory leak issues.
PS5 users, however, have encountered a strange scenario where the game asks for a PS4 disc, even when they have the PS5 digital copy. A reinstall does not solve the issue, and the only workaround that has been reported is removing the old PS4 disc to access the new content.
The community’s response has been a combination of laughs, helpful suggestions for fixing the problem, and bashing of the developers. Some players joke about Bardock running around the planet, DLC being overpowered, and the party menu glitch. Others find themselves in fights that last only a few hits with no challenge at all. There are even events that seem almost too weird to be real, like fighting against Demon King Piccolo as Prince Vegeta. However, while some bugs may be funny, most are just exhausting. The forums are stuffed with players sharing their problems, asking for help, or venting to others who are going through the same mess.
What hurts the most is the deafening silence from the developers. For all the grievances regarding save corruption, auto-save failures, and game-breaking bugs, there has been precious little official word. No worthwhile patches, no proper communication—just fans left in the dark, hoping for a miracle patch. Until then, the best advice is to save your games, shut down between playthroughs, and perhaps keep something close by to squeeze when the bugs pile up.
And still, the fans continue to return. Perhaps it’s because the world of Dragon Ball is simply impossible to resist. Perhaps it’s the expectation that the next patch will somehow put everything right. Or perhaps, like Bardock himself, we simply don’t know when to quit—despite the odds, or the save files, being against us.