When we discussed the announcement of today’s Dragon Quest 40th Anniversary live stream, I suggested that they might announce “a completely different Dragon Quest XII” instead.

And… that turned out to be exactly what happened.

Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate was announced exactly 5 years ago, described as having a new combat system and potentially being darker in tone, and updates about it after that were few and far between.

So it wasn’t a huge shock to learn they changed directions with it, although I’m a little surprised at how up-front they were about it. In today’s short live stream, they said outright that development was restarted. They started from scratch with a new direction, and now it has a logo (pictured above) and title, Dragon Quest XII: Beyond Dreams.

After a short teaser that gave a glimpse of the main characters and the world (which admittedly is more than we ever saw for Flames of Fate, they said it’s about a hero who has strange visions while asleep and that beyond those dreams is “surely not a world of darkness, but a bright and exciting future.”

It really sounds like the darker direction planned for Flames of Fate turned out not to be popular.

Anyway, Beyond Dreams sounds like it’s still early in development, but here’s hoping we don’t have to wait another five years before we hear about it again. In the meantime, they closed out the stream with the announcement of a new Dragon Quest Monsters game, The Withered World.

I still haven’t played any of the Dragon Quest Monsters games (besides the demo for the previous one), but I’m curious about this new game as well.

How do you feel about the latest Dragon Quest announcements?

Dragon Quest XII is once again a hot topic of debate, which is impressive considering how little we know about it.

Part of this comes from Final Fantasy XVI. Being an M-rated action RPG, it’s led many fans to think Dragon Quest XII will follow in its footsteps.

The concerns about Dragon Quest XII having action combat have been circulating ever since it was announced, despite there being no proof of that.

This time, however, the controversy is more about the game’s tone.

The latest news comes from an interview in which Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii was asked about the status of Dragon Quest XII, since we haven’t seen anything about it since it was announced in 2021.

As translated by Noisy Pixel, he responded:

Mmm, I guess it will take a little while. This time we are making a game directed toward an adult audience, so we are having a lot of trouble (laughs). There was also the Coronavirus pandemic.”

He goes on to say that a lot of employees are still working remotely.

This has spurred a lot of controversy over the idea that Dragon Quest XII will be a dark, edgy, M-rated game, along with the repeated claims that it won’t have turn-based combat, even though none of this has been confirmed. We still don’t know what they mean about the target audience being adults. We barely know anything about Dragon Quest XII at all.

Here’s what’s actually been confirmed about Dragon Quest XII:

• The full title is Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate.
• It was described as “Dragon Quest for adults” when announced.
• It will have choices.
• The combat system will be “renewed” but still feel familiar to fans (based on the translation here).
• The story is complete.
• It has the same director as Dragon Quest XI.
• It uses Unreal Engine 5.
• Dragon Quest XII could set the path for the next 10-20 years of the series.

None of that says the combat will be a radical departure (if anything, it suggests the opposite). There’s no proof the tone will be dark and edgy or even rated M, either. All of those assumptions are coming from the “Dragon Quest for adults” line, which still hasn’t been explained. For all we know, that could mean they’re making the gameplay more complex.

So, what about this latest interview answer? Considering he laughed while giving the answer, I’m not sure we should attach too much significance to the adult target audience being what’s caused so much time to pass without news. The remote work and COVID-related delays feel like the more likely culprits.

Dragon Quest XII could have a completely different tone, but it’s too early to panic over it. In the meantime, I probably should play more Dragon Quest so I have more than two games to reference when talking about it!

What do you think Dragon Quest XII having an adult target audience means?