When I was a young journalist, I had the opportunity to interview Yuji Horii at Square Enix HQ in Tokyo. This would've been around 15 years ago, and my abiding memories are the great man chain-smoking throughout the session, and getting visibly irritated when the Square Enix translator was turning his long answers into short English snippets: He prodded them to go again several times, magisterial in his smoker's cloud.
Horii seemed like a man who had all the time in the world, and was going to enjoy it. Dragon Quest fans may well agree, because they've now been waiting eight years for the next instalment in the much-beloved series, the longest gap by far between releases, with no indication of when Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate may be coming, or even if it still is. The series has lost two of its key creatives since Dragon Quest 11: Akira Toriyama, Dragon Quest's main artist, died in March last year, while series composer Koichi Sugiyama died in 2021.
Yuji Horii is of course the creator, director and main writer of the Dragon Quest games and, speaking on a recent livestream with his group KosoKoso Hōsō Kyoku (thanks Automaton), sought to reassure players that Dragon Quest 12 remains very much a going concern.
Horii says the team's "working hard on Dragon Quest 12" and to expect new information on the game little by little. Dragon Quest 12 was first announced in 2021 with a teaser video but, since then, there's been almost no information about it: Horii has previously said it will change up the series with a darker and more mature tone, with a story built around impactful player choices, and an overhaul of the traditional command battle system. This entry is being co-developed by Square Enix, Hexadrive and serial DQ collaborators Orca.
Last year Horii spoke about Dragon Quest 12 following the death of Toriyama. "There have been some concerns about Dragon Quest 12, but I was actually in a meeting about it very recently," said Horii on X. "While I can’t share any details yet, I want it to be something worthy of the posthumous work of the two [Toriyama and Sugiyama] who passed away. I’ll do my best!"
Despite the lack of details on this most recent livestream, Horii apologised for any confusion around the game's status, and shot down any speculation it had been cancelled.
That never seemed particularly likely, as the Dragon Quest series remains one of Square Enix's biggest hitters: The most recent release, Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake, is one of the rare games that managed to actually exceed Square Enix's ludicrous sales expectations. And while we're waiting for the info on 12, there's plenty more Dragon Quest in the meantime with a remake of the first two entries due on Steam this year.
