Jump Force

Did You Know?

• Jump Force is a 1-v-1 fighting game where players control a team of three characters, switching between them during battle.
• The game's online server ranked matches shut down on August 24, 2022.

Premise

When the real world collides with Shōnen Jump universes, humanity is invaded by the Venoms, an army of mind-controlled villains led by Kane and Galena. Heroes are recruited into the Jump Force under Director Glover and his AI partner Navigator. A suspicious figure uses both sides to gain a mysterious artifact and merge all worlds. Frieza attacks New York City with Venoms, confronting Son Goku; a stray blast fatally wounds a civilian, whom Trunks revives with an umbras cube. The civilian becomes the player character. Glover explains that manga worlds merged with reality, and umbras cubes turn evil-hearted humans into Venoms. The Jump Force divides into Alpha (led by Goku, with Piccolo, Zoro, Gaara), Beta (led by Luffy, with Boa Hancock, Sanji, Boruto, later Vegeta), and Gamma (led by Naruto, with Kakashi, Sasuke, Trunks, Sabo). Light Yagami joins, secretly seeking to restore his Death Note's power. Heroes mind-controlled by evil umbras cubes are freed and recruited: Alpha gains Ichigo, Rukia, Renji, Yusuke, Atem, Asta; Beta gains Jotaro, Kenshiro, Ryo, Kenshin, Kurapika, Izuku; Gamma gains Seiya, Shiryu, Gon, Killua, Hisoka, Dai. Duplicates of villains made from dark umbras cubes appear alongside real ones, including Frieza, Blackbeard, Kaguya, Cell, Aizen, Dio, Toguro, and Shishio.

Characters

The launch roster includes 40 playable characters from 16 series. Fourteen additional characters were added via Character Passes, and three via a free update, totaling 57. Players can create a custom character with abilities, outfits, and accessories earned through gameplay. Series represented include Black Clover, Bleach, Boruto, City Hunter, Dragon Ball, Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, Fist of the North Star, Hunter × Hunter, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, My Hero Academia, Naruto, One Piece, Rurouni Kenshin, Saint Seiya, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and YuYu Hakusho. Original characters include Galena, Kane, Prometheus (Director Glover), and Navigator. Death Note characters Light Yagami and Ryuk also appear.

Development and release

Spike Chunsoft developed Jump Force using Unreal Engine 4, published by Bandai Namco for the 50th anniversary of Weekly Shōnen Jump. Akira Toriyama designed the original characters. Announced at E3 2018 during Microsoft's press conference, it released on February 14, 2019, in Japan for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, and February 15, 2019, worldwide for those platforms plus Windows. A Nintendo Switch port, Jump Force Deluxe Edition including first Character Pass DLC, released worldwide on August 28, 2020.

Reception

The game received mixed or average reviews on Metacritic. In Japan, the PS4 version sold about 76,894 physical units in its launch week, becoming the top-selling game. By March 17, 2019, it sold 190,214 physical units. The Switch version sold 15,588 retail copies in its first week, ranking seventh. In North America, it debuted second on NPD's February 2019 chart behind Anthem, and became the region's fourth best-selling game of 2019. In Europe, it debuted fourth on UK charts (PS4 74% of sales), first in Italy, and third in Switzerland. Steam Spy estimated PC sales between 50,000 and 100,000 by March 2019, and between 200,000 and 500,000 by December 2020.