For many gamers, one of the biggest “sins” that can be done with a gaming title is for a developer or publisher to announce the game and then go silent for years. Granted, there is a “grace period” within such things, as many developers/publishers will go out and announce a key title or IP that is on the way, but not show it off until it’s ready for a true story or gameplay trailer. But when that lasts too long? Gamers get nervous and wonder if something is going on with the title. Dragon Quest XII is one such game that’s happened to recently.
The game, fully titled Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate, was announced all the way back in 2021. According to series lead Yuji Horii, the title would mimic a certain other Square Enix franchise by having a darker tone and overhauling the combat system. It also would deliver key choices to players so they could more drastically affect the storyline versus just moving from story beat to story beat. Most people were excited about these new changes, and then, nothing happened. We didn’t get any news or updates on the game, and now, people are worried.
To that end, Yuji Horii made a post on his Twitter that was noted by other people like Stealth. He noted in his post that he was sorry that there weren’t any gaming updates to be made. However, he also said he had just been in a meeting about the title. So, if nothing else, there are still talks being done about it:
Another thing to consider here is that this will be the first mainline series game done without the full help of Akira Toriyama and Koichi Sugiyama, both of whom have passed away. Horii noted that he wanted to make a game that would do right by them, and that’s an honorable thing to want to achieve.
The other thing to question here is how Square Enix will factor into it all. The Dragon Quest franchise might be the longest-running RPG series in history, but it’s never been the highest-selling among Square Enix’s roster. Plus, with the company abandoning its exclusivity style, it’s fair to think that they’re not just going to want to make a game that sells but can be bought on as many systems as possible.
So, in the meantime, players might have to settle for remakes and spinoffs while they wait for this game to arrive.
