GoKawiilIt's a big day for Dragon Quest, with May 27 marking 40 years since the iconic RPG series debuted on the NES. To celebrate, Square Enix put out a special anniversary livestream that featured a number of announcements about past and future Dragon Quest games, the most noteworthy of which being Dragon Quest XII.
But before you get too excited, the main takeaway is that development on the next mainline entry in the series was at some point rebooted in the five years since it was first announced (during the last big Dragon Quest anniversary livestream). So while Square Enix says that development is going well, those hoping for an imminent release are likely going to be disappointed.
"Work on the original version, Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate, hit a lot of hurdles along the way," said executive producer Yosuke Saito, who was alongside Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii in a video presentation that's been translated from Japanese into English. "But as we kept talking with Mr. Horii and pinned down what a mainline Dragon Quest game should look like, we decided to move things around and start over from scratch. It was a major decision, but I believe it was the right one to ensure the next Dragon Quest game will be one that all you fans of the series will really love."
As part of the big reset, the game's original subtitle has gone, and it will now be known as Dragon Quest XII: Beyond Dreams. The new name points to the game's story, which will follow a young adventurer whose sleep is being interrupted by strange visions. "What lies beyond dreams?" teased Horii. "Surely not a world of darkness, but a bright and exciting future."
That's about all we got in the way of details, but the development team did also release some brief gameplay footage. Dragon Quest XII is already looking pretty lovely indeed, elevated, as usual, by the late Akira Toriyama's character designs. The game looks so good, in fact, that Square Enix had a few other announcements to make up for what could still be a long road to release.
The publisher also announced the latest entry in its Pokemon-inspired Dragon Quest Monsters spin-off series, with Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World coming soon to Switch, Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. We're also getting a Switch 2 version of Dragon Quest XI on September 24. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age — Definitive Edition features new story content, the ability to switch between 3D and 2D graphics modes on the fly, and separate frame rate and fidelity settings.
Annoyingly, you won't be able to transfer your save data from the 2019 Switch version, and it doesn't look like there's an upgrade path available either. The game will cost $40 when it launches at the beginning of the fall.
Dragon Quest is particularly huge in its native Japan, but Echoes of an Elusive Age was a worldwide hit, shifting nearly 9 million units worldwide, and Square Enix has been capitalizing on the series' increasing mainstream popularity in the last few years. We've had lavish HD-2D remakes of the first three games in the series, and earlier this year the publisher released the toylike Dragon Quest VII Reimagined on most platforms. This month, the original Dragon Quest was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame.