SweetieGames

Dragon Quest turned 40 last week, and the celebration stream brought news that myself and all Dragon Quest fans have been waiting for: a peek at the upcoming Dragon Quest XII. Nearly nine years after the release of Dragon Quest XI, the reveal of the next Dragon Quest game has been widely discussed, especially as a darker new tone was promised for DQ XII: The Flames of Fate.

…Except we aren’t getting The Flames of Fate. Creator Yuji Horii announced during the stream that Dragon Quest XII: Beyond Dreams was in production, and that the original, darker toned Flames of Fate had been scrapped. There’s no sign of a release date as production had to completely restart for this new vision.

According to Dragon Quest XII‘s Executive Producer Yosuke Saito, the development of Flames of Fate hit many hurdles since its announcement back in 2021. While assessing what a mainline Dragon Quest game should be, the team decided to take the game in a new direction, starting from scratch. “We are working hard on XII, but it will be a while before it is in your hands,” he said.

Despite the development of Beyond Dreams taking place after the passing of the series’ iconic character designer Akira Toriyama and musician Koichi Sugiyama, the revised game will still feature music and characters created by the pair for The Flames of Fate.

While some fans had negative reactions to this announcement, I’m feeling pretty excited about it. We never got enough of a glimpse into the Flames of Fate for it to really be missed; only a title, a graphic and a promise for it to be a darker game. We never saw any plot, any characters or locations. There wasn’t really much for me to get attached to. I like that Beyond Dreams seems to be matching the tone of previous DQ titles; I’ve always seen Final Fantasy as the place for gritty JRPGs with darker tones, and while Dragon Quest can have it’s darker or more emotional moments, it’s definitely the more colourful and light-hearted cousin. It’s a perfect entry point for newbies to the JRPG genre and is still enjoyable to those who have played JRPGs for years. There’s a reason it has persevered for 40 years!

While we won’t be seeing DQXII: Beyond Dreams for quite some time, I’m definitely intrigued to see what it has in store. It’s been so long since we got to see brand new DQ characters, so I can’t wait to meet them!