Six Dragon Quest Projects Announced
Square Enix aired its Dragon Quest 35th anniversary stream and at the top of the show they promised six game announcements. They delivered on that number, but only three of the six are probably worth caring about for U.S. gamers. That’s because the first announcement was version 6 of Dragon Quest X (online MMORPG) coming out this fall in Japan. Unfortunately they still refuse to localize this one, but it looked great!
Also coming to mobile devices is a new Dragon Quest puzzle game where you match up erasers of the same characters to wipe out monsters. This one looked cute and could be a fun time. It sounds like it’ll come out worldwide as a free to play mobile title sometime later this year.
Perhaps we’ll get lucky and Square Enix will decide to bring over this next title, which is very intriguing: Dragon Quest X Offline. Yes, offline. They’re taking the story from the online game and making it so fans can play offline with completely overhauled chibi-style graphics. I mean if we can’t get the “real thing” maybe they’d consider bringing this one out over here? They didn’t really commit to that so I kind of doubt it.
OK, so onto the games that are announced for worldwide releases! Dragon Quest Treasures is a brand new entry in the franchise starring Erik and Mia from Dragon Quest XI. You play as their younger selves globetrotting the world in search of treasures. Yuji Horii says the game is still an RPG, but it doesn’t play like you might expect a typical Dragon Quest game to play. The game looked great and the title will arrive worldwide simultaneously. What platforms you might ask? Your guess is as good as mine, but if I had to take a stab at it I’d say the Switch is a shoe-in.
Although I was excited and couldn’t wait for the inevitable Dragon Quest XII announcement (see next paragraph), it was Dragon Quest III HD-2D that really made my day. For those that don’t know, Dragon Warrior III was my favorite game in the series on the NES and this remake looks absolutely incredible. It’s using similar graphics technology that Octopath Traveller used and it looks stunning in the Dragon Quest world. This one should be a worldwide release, but no release date has yet been announced. I’m extremely excited to play through this game once again!
The final announcement was for Dragon Quest XII, and my fears came true in that they didn’t really show off anything except the logo. The lead up to the reveal makes the game look darker and maybe grittier than previous iterations, but it’s difficult to say how that will impact the final game. Yuji Horii wouldn’t really divulge much about the game other than to say that they’re experimenting with the way combat works by possibly changing the command structure. What that means exactly is anyone’s guess, but given the reticence to change something as sacred as the battle system I wouldn’t expect a dramatic change, for fear of outrage from the large fan base in Japan. I’m excited to see more of the game, which has the official subtitle of Flames of Fate, and the fact that they’re aiming for a worldwide release is a very welcome change indeed! It sounds like this game is probably a long ways off and no platforms have been announced, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one hit in 2023, but hey that’s just my gut feeling. Hopefully it’s sooner!
Overall I had a good time watching the stream. I would’ve liked to see more of the Dragon Quest III remake and I’m saddened that they’re still not localizing part X. Also, a small gameplay snippet of XII would’ve been really awesome just to get an idea of what they’re going for. Still, it was a fun way to spend the night and I’m glad to see the series is thriving and we’ll have plenty to play in the near future!
Oh, it should be noted that in the stream Yuji Horii was asked questions throughout and he let it slip that he hopes to remake Dragon Quest & Dragon Quest II in the HD-2D graphics engine as well. In addition, he seemed to indicate that a new Dragon Quest Monsters was in development and that it would differ from the newly announced Dragon Quest Treasures. This was all being translated on the fly so some of these details sort of flew by very quickly, but watch the full stream for yourself to pick up on these (and maybe other) tidbits.
Craig has been covering the video game industry since 1995. His work has been published across a wide spectrum of media sites. He’s currently the Editor-In-Chief of Nintendo Times and contributes to Gaming Age.
