SDCC: Sand Land Gameplay Preview

During this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, one of the brand-new games available to play on the show floor was the upcoming action-RPG Sand Land, based on Akira Toriyama’s manga of the same name. The property is receiving a nice little resurgence this year, with the upcoming release of a new anime feature from Sunrise, plus the new video game by Bandai Namco Entertainment.

Bandai Namco had an impressive booth setup specifically for Sand Land, complete with players able to drive the tank featured in the story and the game, and I was able to get hands-on with the title. Fans of Toriyama and Dragon Quest look to be in for a treat, as this look to be an expansive, immersive, and in-depth gameplay set in the unique world of Toriyama’s original manga.

Sand Land has a post-apocalyptic setting, where most of the world is a desert wasteland and suffering from an extreme water shortage. The story follows a group of three survivors, the Fiend Prince, Beelzebub, a human Sheriff Rao, and the demon Thief. Together, they embark on an adventure to find the Legendary Fountain in the desert for Rao to save his village.

Image Credit: Bandai Namco Entertainment

The gameplay demo starts with a type of vehicle chase sequence. This involves outrunning a giant San Dragon in the main trio’s vehicles by dodging left and right. Eventually, the main trio detaches some of their cargo to get away from the creature and find shelter in a nearby abandoned village where the main chunk of the demo starts.

The demo featured a small, varied slice of gameplay. Generally, players control Beelzebub, who is followed by his trio as they roam the desert and fight enemies and scavenge for resources. All about the desert are giant dinosaur-like reptiles and dangerous bandits, some of which have mecha-like armor and weapons. During the demo, the trio gets to pick up a tank, which they can use to even the odds and launch some dangerous artillery.

The tank is a big difference-maker for the combat. It’s reminiscent of the tank from Metal Slug but in a 3D environment if that makes any sense. It has a larger cannon and a less damaging machine gun. Each has their own cooldowns and refresh rate. It controls fairly well.

Image Credit: Bandai Namco Entertainment

On foot, it looks like you largely control Beelzebub. You can traverse the settlements and talk to locals, and you also use Beelzebub to combat enemies. It looks like Beelzebub has fairly responsive combat and controls. Besides fighting hand-to-hand, he has other combat techniques, and what looks to be more skills and abilities he can unlock further throughout the gameplay experience.

Truthfully, the game feels and plays somewhat like Tales of Arise. Also, it looks like it faithfully adapted the storyline of the manga, along with Toriyama’s unique art style. The character models and artwork look like they were adapted straight from the manga. Toriyama is best known for the world of Dragon Ball, but it’s fun to see his other work get adapted into the gaming space. Plus, Sand Land is also receiving an anime feature, which is releasing in Japan on August 18. It’s set to release in North America in 2024.

The main gripe with the Sand Land demo is that I didn’t get to have enough time to really delve into the open-world sandbox. The demo was fairly short and reset after about 15 minutes. Personally, when I play an open-world open RPG type of game experience, I like to take my time and explore every nook and cranny. So for the gameplay demo at Comic-Con, there just wasn’t enough time to truly explore and do look around the map.

Image Credit: Bandai Namco Entertainment

The sandbox for the game looks huge, and it looks like the game will have quite a bit to explore between the desert wasteland, the settlements, and the cave systems. Not to mention, it looks like there are various forms of combat, between fighting enemies hand-to-hand and the mobile tank combat. This looks like a game you will be able to get lost in and have hours of fun just playing and exploring, so hopefully the final product pays off.

In terms of the storyline, the world looks fairly bleak. It looks like humans are struggling to survive, and the world has been shattered by war and famine. This basically looks like Toriyama doing his own unique take on post-apocalyptic storylines such as Fist of the North Star or Max Max. However, it has its own unique spin on the post-apocalyptic setting, with some of that trademark Toriyama wackiness and whimsy, with the presence of demons in the world. Beelzebub, while being the prince of demons, is not malevolent and seems melancholy of the hate humans have toward demons.

The gameplay demo at SDCC was completely in Japanese and with subtitles. I’m not sure if it will launch with an English version yet, but I’m assuming it will since that’s usually the case with most major Bandai Namco action RPG titles. I’m also hoping an English dub will produced for the anime feature as well when it hits US theaters next year.

Sand Land is currently in the works for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows PC. It does not yet have an official release date.