Square Enix made an exciting announcement for RPG players in the West. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age is heading westward in 2018!
For those of you who don’t know, Dragon Quest is an RPG franchise that was created for home consoles in 1986 by Yochi Horrii; it was previously known in America as Dragon Warrior. It’s often considered one of the more Influential Japanese RPGs. The series is known for its unique art style, which was created by Dragon Ball Z creator, Akira Toriyama, and music by Koichi Sugiyama. The series was originally published by Enix until its merger with Squaresoft in 2003.
This is big news for Dragon Quest fans: We’re getting a core Dragon Quest game! It’s been a few years since the last core title was released stateside (not counting the 3DS remakes). Dragon Quest IX was released for the Nintendo DS in 2009, that’s almost 12 years. Unfortunately, we never saw the release of Dragon Quest X in America, which was released in Japan only in 2012 for the Wii. Series creator, Yuji Horii, made an announcement via Youtube about the games overview and localization process.
Square Enix revealed that the game will be localized for English players in 2018. Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age was released in Japan on July 29th for the 3DS and PS4. We do know that there is a Switch version coming, but we don’t know which version we will see in the states–there is a good chance that the Switch version will be released in the states first. Nintendo has a history of housing the Dragon Quest series in the West, but we can be hopeful that the PS4 version will find its way to the states too. More information on the localization will be released in the fall of this year, so we could hear more at PAX West.
It’s great to see that Square Enix hasn’t forgotten about their western players.
