Dragon Quest XI Coming West in 2018, Series Designer Broadcasts Special Message

Today Square Enix officially announced that Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age is officially coming West. Large portions of the community are about to buy the Japanese version of the monumental Dragon Quest release and brave the Japanese text just for the chance to play it early. Until this morning, we had no idea when the game would come West or even if it would come West. A 2018 release is sounding pretty fantastic right now. Legendary Dragon Quest designer Yuji Horii offered fans a special message which you can watch above.

"The highly anticipated latest entry to the beloved DRAGON QUEST video game franchise follows the adventure of a hero who must solve the mystery of his fate with the aid of a charming cast of supporting characters. DRAGON QUEST XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age will offer a world of adventure, exploration and instances of heroism— all brought to life by the character art of famed manga artist Akira Toriyama and the memorable music of composer Koichi Sugiyama."

In the press release, Square Enix mentions that we can look forward to more information this fall. There's still quite a bit that we need to know, since there are two different versions of this game. Dragon Quest XI is releasing for the PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo 3DS. The 3DS version of the game is pretty much two games in one, containing more modern 3D visuals, and old-school 2D visual options as well.

Of course we want both (all three) versions here in the West, but it's still unclear if both versions are getting localized, or if the console and 3DS versions contain different dialogue. We do know that there is no voice acting, so that should speed up the localization process considerably. The remasters of Dragon Quest VII and VIII both did well on the 3DS, so we're assuming that both versions are on the way.

Also, in case you needed to get any more hyped, a Nintendo Switch version of Dragon Quest XI has been the topic of conversation and an object of anticipation for fans over the past few months, and we're hoping against hope that Square Enix will announce it officially soon. Honestly, I would be overjoyed at either a scaled down version of the PS4 game, or a jazzed up version of the 3DS game. Let's make it happen!