The ‘Gundam’ franchise is setting its sights on the esports market

The long-running mecha franchise began in 1979

Bandai Namco Entertainment is reportedly developing a new Gundam game that is taking aim at the esports sphere.

The news came during this week’s first annual Gundam Conference in Tokyo. Chief Gundam Officer for Bandai Namco, Koji Fujiwara, discussed the future of the franchise, including potential games.

As reported by Kotaku, a slide during the presentation mentioned “Another esports tournament” and “New game coming soon” suggesting that the company would be looking to capitalise on the popularity of the franchise, and the esports audience.

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Gundam has had some experience in the esports scene, with the arcade only Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. having networked play with other arcades. The game’s PS4 port, Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. Maxi On, is also set to feature during EVO 2021‘s Online Side Tournament.

Bandai Namco has recently been in the news thanks to its contributions to E3. First up, Tekken veteran Kazuya Mishima made an unexpected leap to Nintendo’s multiplayer brawler Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, following characters like Street Fighter‘s Ryu.

E3 also saw a full gameplay reveal of Elden Ring, FromSoftware‘s latest dark gothic action RPG, this time with an open world twist. Bandai Namco are set to publish the game, which will release on January 21, 2022.

Game Of Thrones author George RR Martin recently spoke about the work he did for the game’s story, saying: “I worked up a fairly detailed background for them, and then they took it from there.”

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