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?

In a recent broadcast, Dragon Quest series creator Yuji Horii said there will be an anniversary live stream on May 27.

As reported by Gematsu, this will include “an announcement about the next game,” along with other news.

This sounds like the next game in the series is ready to be announced…

…except it already was. Exactly 5 years before the upcoming live stream, in fact.

It was all the way back on May 27, 2021 when the 35th anniversary live stream included several announcements, including Dragon Quest III HD-2D, Dragon Quest Treasures, and yes, Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate.

What followed were a lot of questions, from what they meant by calling Dragon Quest XII a Dragon Quest game “for adults” and what the “renewed” combat system would be like.

Fans worried that Dragon Quest XII would be dark and edgy, that it would have action combat, all sorts of worries based on those unclear statements when it was announced… and you know, we still don’t have any answers. We have yet to see anything at all about Dragon Quest XII. The last update was an interview in 2023 where Horii cited the pandemic as a reason progress on the game was slow.

Now here we are in 2026, approaching the 40th anniversary live stream, where “the next game” is set to have an announcement. Will we finally see Dragon Quest XII? Will we see a completely different Dragon Quest XII instead? Or is the new announcement for another remake or spin-off?

Whatever the case may be, I hope the game looks good. What do you think will be shown at the live stream?