Celebrating another anniversary, Square Enix threw together a 35th Anniversary livestream to commemorate Dragon Quest’s storied history, with several announcements being made for the franchise.
To kick things off, Square Enix had Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii come out to make the announcements, starting with Dragon Quest 3 getting an HD-2D remake, using a similar art style to that of Octopath Traveler. Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake will release simultaneously worldwide on consoles.
Horii teased the possibility of more releases in this art style saying, “There might be an unexpected surprise for 1 and 2.” Fans who saw the Octopath team’s work and thought how great it would be to get classic titles redone in that style, seem to have had their prayers answered, at least for the Dragon Quest franchise.
A free-to-play puzzle title was announced for mobile which sees the characters take some of the cutest transformations I have ever seen, while Dragon Quest X Offline was announced for 2022, but will only see a Japanese release, at least for the time being.
Additionally, Dragon Quest Treasures was announced with a worldwide release planned. This title will focus on Erik and Mia from DQ XI, but besides it being touted as “not a traditional RPG” not much has been discussed, with platforms and a release window being left out as well.
Finally, we hit the big announcement for the night, with Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate being teased. While all we saw was a logo (which is never a good sign in terms of how far along a game is), it is worth noting that the last mainline title launched in Japan in 2017, so it’s anyone’s best guess how far along it could be. Yuji Horii did say that the story was complete, but that the game would still take some time before it can release.
With changes coming to the combat system with the renewal of the command battle system and the news that it is utilizing Unreal Engine 5, we should see some significant differences between The Flames of Fate and Echoes of an Elusive Age. Takeshi Uchikawa will be the Director for this release, as he was with the last title.
