Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate has been missing in action for a while, but its series creator promises it’s still trudging along.
We’ve known that Dragon Quest 12 has been in the works since at least 2019, and it was officially announced with the subtitle The Flames of Fate way back in 2021, four years ago now. Things have been a bit quiet when it comes to the 12th game in the intervening years, but Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii did actually share an update on the game over the weekend, even if it was just a small one. As part of a livestream with his radio show group KosoKoso Hōsō Kyoku, Horii shared that the team dev team is currently “working hard on Dragon Quest 12”, and that he’s hoping they can share new information about it bit by bit (translations via Automaton).
Fans were a bit concerned about the fact of Dragon Quest 12 last year due to the fact that long-time Dragon Quest producer Yu Miyake moved to Square Enix’s mobile games division, stepping down from his position as producer. In May of last year, following said departure, Horii shared an update, which was also literally just a “don’t worry, the game is still in the works” type of update, but at least this most recent update does still confirm that progress is happening.
Right now, there’s not much known about Dragon Quest 12 in general. Horii suggested at its announcement that the battle system might be different, and that it’ll be targeted more towards adults, though perhaps with Final Fantasy 16 not doing quite as well as Square Enix had hoped it might have shifted to a more broader audience. It’s also aiming for a simultaneous worldwide release, so whenever it does finally come out, you can potentially celebrate on the same day as Japan.