Yuji Horii has reaffirmed that Dragon Quest XII, the next entry in the long-running Japanese RPG series, is indeed not canceled and still in development. The was announced as part of the 35th anniversary of the Dragon Quest franchise all the way back in 2021, four years after the last mainline entry, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, was released. Since then, however, the game has remained mostly silent outside of a reference or two in interviews.
The last time Horii mentioned the title was back in February when he made a point to say that the team developing it at Square Enix is “Working hard,” however, in a recent interview with Gamereactor, he made additional mention of it, giving players a vague update. He stated:
Yes, indeed, I can’t say anything, I apologize. I am making it, putting lots of work into it… I can only say that the next work will be great too. [I’m] working really hard. Please look forward to it is the only thing I can say.
This amounts to much of what he stated the last time, but at least there is something of an attempt to put players’ minds at ease. I would point out that Square Enix announced Kingdom Hearts IV in 2022, with even less stated by the company on its development progress. Square Enix had previously announced a restructuring of their company, along with a multitude of cancellations, under the President of Square Enix, Takashi Kiryu. Dragon Quest is considered by the company to be one of their most important IPs, There were possibilities we could see this version of XII scraped or restarted amid that shuffle. This could have been especially true if there were some sort of development issues occurring behind the scenes.
Dragon Quest, the series, has not been dormant between the releases of its mainline series. In 2024, we saw the release of Dragon Quest III Remake, which debuted on PC to Square Enix’s highest player count ever on the platform. Dragon Quest I & II are also set to release later this year. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, Dragon Quest Treasures, and Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest – The Adventure of Dai are all spin-off titles that have also seen release in the interim.
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