Were you so excited to the point that you even thought the new Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot DLC would surprise you with something great, but then you saw your excitement falling like a Saiyan pod in West City? If that is the case, you are not the only one. Initially, Bardock – Alone Against Fate DLC was pitched to Leprechaun fans as a tough, tragic experience, going through one of the most well-known stories of the entire series. However, this single has been overshadowed by the enormous number of bugs, glitches, and other kinds of technical problems that the Z-fighters not only struggle to carry on their battle but also to use their Senzu Beans.
When the Bardock DLC was finally released, people initially had great expectations. The idea of playing as Bardock and fighting against Frieza’s army was something that thrilled the fans. However, very soon after the release, there were issues that surfaced from the community. As per GameRant, the PC fans were affected in such a way that the characters’ voices and the text lines were not playing or showing properly, respectively. Some people’s cameras were stuck on the feet of Vegeta, and some people could not even get the game to load, and that too with the latest updates. The bugs were such that the short trip down memory lane, which you could have done in 90 minutes if you hadn’t taken any side quests, turned out to be a lengthy and annoying grind.
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.
Things don’t improve much when you take the platform-specific issues into account. On the Nintendo Switch, the base game usually plays fine—until you get to post-game, where crashes become frighteningly regular, particularly in docked mode. Ironically, the DLC itself runs better, but as soon as you switch back to the main game, it crashes so frequently that you might as well call it a mini-challenge. Others have reported that switching to handheld mode or turning the system off between play sessions helps slightly, which suggests memory leak problems. On the PS5 side, gamers have encountered a strange issue where the game requests a PS4 disc, despite having the PS5 digital copy. Reinstalling doesn’t remedy it, and the only reported workaround is pulling out the ancient PS4 disc just to access the new content.
The reaction from the community has been a mix of humor, helpful troubleshooting suggestions, and outright frustration. Some players crack jokes about running around the globe as Bardock well past the end of his DLC, because of a party menu glitch. Others get stuck in battles that last only a couple of blows, taking away any sense of challenge. There are even occurrences that feel almost too bizarre to be true, such as battling Demon King Piccolo as Prince Vegeta. But whereas some bugs are humorous, most are simply tiring. Forums are full of players posting their issues, seeking solutions, or simply ranting to others who are experiencing the same chaos.
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.