Five years after IDW Games quietly cancelled the project and refunded its angry pre-orderers, Dragon Ball Z is making another run at the tabletop. Pop Art Games and Lynnvander Studios have confirmed Dragon Ball Z: The Board Game Saga will hit Kickstarter on 9 June 2026, with Pop Art veterans Jerry Bennington and Chris Rappley running the licence and Lynnvander designers Tommy Gofton and Josh Derksen back on the mechanics.
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Find events near youThe campaign-driven cooperative game supports 1 to 4 players controlling Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and friends through the central anime story arcs. Each turn, your Power Level decides what actions you can take, while Stress builds up to unlock character Forms (Super Saiyan being the obvious one). Combat uses dice and character-specific Techniques, and the team has to keep villains from collecting all seven Dragon Balls to avoid a campaign defeat. Episodes can be played as one continuous arc or as standalone sessions, which is a sensible concession for groups whose schedules don't survive a 30-session commitment.
The June launch lands a few weeks before San Diego Comic-Con, suggesting Pop Art has learned from IDW's quiet 2021 collapse and is going for a high-visibility marketing window. Licensing comes through Toei Animation and Bird Studio/Shueisha, so the canon should hold up. Gofton's Lynnvander credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cowboy Bebop: Boardgame Boogie, BattleTech: Aces and Snap Ships Tactics, which is a stronger licensed-game pedigree than your average anime cash-in.
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See how it worksBurnt-once backers will be cautious, and rightly so. But Bennington and Rappley are veterans of the licensing world, and unlike IDW Games in 2021, Pop Art Games is not a publisher in financial trouble.
Sources: Geek Native | TechRaptor | Lynnvander Studios
