Square Enix announced Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate as the capstone reveal during the Dragon Quest 35th Anniversary stream. While we only got to see a logo during the event, series creator Yuji Horii shared a few details about what to expect from the next new Dragon Quest game.
Horii said Dragon Quest 12 will be a darker game, a “Dragon Quest for adults,” which is not unlike how Naoki Yoshida described the upcoming Final Fantasy 16. While the series is no stranger to dark stories already, it often treats them in a more lighthearted way, pays them less attention, or sees them resolve with a happy ending.
DQ 12 will also feature at least a few important choices that influence how the game’s story unfolds, but Horii wasn’t able to share much more.
The latest Dragon Quest is moving away from the classic command-based menu combat the series helped establish as the norm in RPGs. However, Horii said it’s not abandoning the system completely. This, too, was a subject he couldn’t speak much on, but suffice to say, combat is getting a big shakeup of some kind.
Dragon Quest XI Definitive Edition recently released on Xbox One and Game Pass, making it the first Dragon Quest available on every console. Presumably, we’ll see Dragon Quest 12 on Nintendo Switch, PC, and PlayStation, but Square Enix is keeping those details for a later time.
