Bandai Namco Entertainment made quite a splash at Anime Expo 2024 this weekend with its Summer Showcase featuring announcements for Dragon Ball, Gundam, and Sword Art Online. The panel also featured the exciting reveal of Bleach Rebirth of Souls.
Based on the popular manga and anime television series, Bleach Rebirth of Souls is a 3D fighting game that will allow players to experience "iconic moments from the beloved franchise."
A two-minute announcement trailer was shown during Bandai Namco's panel, highlighting the core cast, including Ichigo, Rukia, Orihimi, Ishida, and Chad. We also get a brief glimpse of the action-packed gameplay.
"Awaken the blade and reverse your fate in Bleach Rebirth of Souls," Bandai Namco teased in the official description of the game. "Engage in thrilling action-packed battles with iconic characters from the legendary anime franchise including Ichigo Kurosaki, Rukia Kuchiki, Uryu Ishida, and Yasutora Sado (Chad). In the game, players will be able to unleash unique sword abilities like Bankai and unlock new forms in battle to claim victory against their opponents. Bandai Namco will unveil many more exciting details about the game in the months to come."
Bleach Rebirth of Souls is being developed by Tamsoft Corporation for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It will support local and online multiplayer.
No release date was announced although the website lists that the game is "coming soon." This could suggest that a 2024 launch is a possibility.
Bleach is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. The story follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki, a teenager who gains special powers that allow him to evil spirits called Hollows. The manga was serialized in Shueisha's shonen manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump from August 2001 to August 20016.
There have been numerous adaptations of the manga, including an anime series produced by studio Pierrot from 2004 to 2012. Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, a sequel to the Bleach anime series, adapted the entirety of the manga's final arc. Two of the four planned course have already aired with the third cour, The Conflict, scheduled to premiere sometime in 2024.
In addition to the anime series, there have been other media adaptations, including two original video animation episodes, four animated feature films, a live-action movie from Warner Bros., and, of course, tons of video games. Bleach games have been released over the years for Nintendo DS, PlayStation and other consoles. The first game based on the series was Bleach: Heat the Soul, released back in 2005, while the series made a recent appearance in 2019's crossover fighting game Jump Force.
Bleach Rebirth of Souls is the first standalone Bleach game to be published by Bandai Namco. The game publisher is also releasing Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero on October 11.