Development on Dragon Quest 12 has been completely overhauled, which means it’ll come out even later than expected.
Back in 2021, Square Enix announced Dragon Quest 12: The Flames Of Fate, which was billed as a more adult entry for the series, with the accompanying teaser trailer and logo hinting at a darker tone than usual.
While Dragon Quest has maintained relevancy through spin-offs and several successful remakes (the most recent being this year’s Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined), the only update fans had on Dragon Quest 12 was that its efforts to appeal to an older audience were causing issues behind the scenes.
A mature, grittier Dragon Quest always sounded like a bad idea and, fortunately, Square Enix seems to have recognised that, as Dragon Quest 12 has been re-announced and looks far more in-keeping with the series’ usual aesthetic.
It’s also been renamed to Dragon Quest 12: Beyond Dreams and sports a new logo. And while the teaser trailer mostly consists of cinematics, some brief gameplay footage shows off what looks like a very colourful open world setting.
No combat is shown, but Square Enix has given no indication that it won’t be a traditional turn-based role-player like previous entries.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.
The bad news is that after waiting for roughly five years, for Dragon Quest 12, fans are going to have to keep waiting as development has completely restarted from scratch. Given how long game development takes nowadays, the game may not come out for at least another five years.
‘Due to a reshuffle of the team and a restart of development, it’s going to be a bit longer till it’s in your hands,’ admits executive producer Yosuke Saito.
‘Work on the original version, Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate, hit a lot of hurdles along the way. But as we kept talking with [series creator Yuji 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 that the next Dragon Quest game will be one that all you fans of the series will really love.’
By the time Dragon Quest 12 comes out, it will have been more than a decade since Dragon Quest 11, which launched in 2017 for the PlayStation 4 and 3DS in Japan.
The PlayStation 4 version was eventually brought to the West the following year, and it has since been ported to Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch. It’s also now confirmed to be getting a Switch 2 port, which is already available for pre-order and launches on September 24.
This comes from a livestreamto celebrate Dragon Quest’s 40th anniversary, where Square Enix also announced a new entry in the Dragon Quest Monsters spin-off series, which is essentially Dragon Quest’s take on Pokémon.
This new entry – Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World – is in development for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC, and will star two characters from Dragon Quest 5: Bianca and Nera.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.