Dragon Quest celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and to mark the occasion, a new update was given on the long-in-development Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate. First announced five years ago, the game won’t be out for quite a while yet, as executive producer Yosuke Saito announced that development had been restarted on the project and it has a brand-new name–Dragon Quest 12: Beyond Dreams
“We’re hard at work on Dragon Quest 12, but due to a reshuffle of the team and a restart of development, it’s going to be a bit longer until it’s in your hands,” Saito said in a Dragon Quest livestream. “Work on the original version, Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate, hit a lot of hurdles along the way. But as we kept talking with Mr. Yuji Horii (Dragon Quest game designer) and pinned down what a mainline Dragon Quest game should look like, we decided to move things around and start over from scratch. It was a major decision, but I believe it was the right one to ensure the next Dragon Quest game will be one that all you fans of the series will really love.”
Saito then debuted a sneak peek at the game, revealing a colorful collection of scenes featuring new characters, landscapes, and monsters. One thing that has been preserved for Dragon Quest 12 is its art direction, as it’s still heavily inspired by the work of Akira Toriyama. The late Dragon Ball creator was a character designer on the series since its inception and worked on every entry in the main series until his death in 2024.
Development on Dragon Quest 12 hit a rocky patch in 2024, when series producer Yu Miyake reportedly stepped down due to repeated delays. Updates have been sporadic on the game, which follows the last mainline installment, 2018’s Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age. Fortunately, the franchise has expanded with spin-offs over the years, and fans can look forward to Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World. Launching for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and Switch 2 in the near future, the spin-off is a creature-collecting game that’s not too dissimilar from Pokemon, but with a signature Dragon Quest touch.
