Dragon Quest 12 is still in development, series creator Yuji Horii has confirmed.
The latest in the long-running RPG series was first announced back in 2021 but little has been seen since beyond the initial teaser trailer.
Over the weekend, though, Horii held a livestream with this radio show group KosoKoso Hōsō Kyoku (thanks Automaton) where he confirmed the development team is “working hard on Dragon Quest 12”.
Further details are expected to be released little by little, though nothing more was revealed at this time.
Back in May last year, Horii also acknowledged Dragon Quest 12 on social media, stating the development team wanted to make a game “worthy of the final contributions of the two people who passed away”.
Those two people are Dragon Quest character designer Akira Toriyama and composer Koichi Sugiyama, who had worked on every game in the series before their deaths.
Horii’s comments came shortly after Dragon Quest series producer Yu Miyake stepped down from his role to oversee Square Enix‘s mobile game division, putting Dragon Quest 12’s development into question.
Now, in his livestream, Horii apologised for confusion around the game’s development and denied it had been cancelled.
Little else is known about Dragon Quest 12, though at the series’ 35th anniversary livestream Horii stated the classic turn-based battle system will be altered and the tone will be darker and aimed at adults.
In its latest earnings report, Square Enix stated Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake exceeded sales expectations. Previously it reported sales of 2m copies, with the game becoming 2024’s biggest game in Japan after just a week on sale.
While similar remakes of Dragon Quest 1 and 2 are expected this year, anticipation is building for the next full release in the series to build on the success of Dragon Quest 3.
fbq('init', '560747571485047');
fbq('track', 'PageView'); window.facebookPixelsDone = true;
window.dispatchEvent(new Event('BrockmanFacebookPixelsEnabled')); }
window.addEventListener('BrockmanTargetingCookiesAllowed', appendFacebookPixels);