Here’s Why Dragon Quest 11 Isn’t an Open World Game

Square Enix’s Dragon Quest XI promises to be quite an evolution for the series, focusing on a razor sharp story, memorable characters and worthwhile combat. But some players may be wondering why it’s a bit limited in scope, instead of being an open-world adventure. Apparently there’s a pretty good reason for that.

While speaking with Edge Magazine, series creator Yuji Horii explained that the team wanted to put more focus into the game, rather than making it an open-world playground for players to jump into. “If you’re going for a completely open world, there’s obviously a development cost attached to that, affecting where you spend your time and effort,” he explained. “If you want to, for example, go fishing somewhere, then you have to put a lot of effort into developing a fishing system. I felt that rather than spread our effort across a breadth of things, we’d rather concentrate everything on the story. I felt that was a much better use of our time.”

That said though, Dragon Quest XI won’t be a completely linear experience, as you’ve still got a full overworld that’s ahead of you, where you can go exploring and speak to people within villages and towns. Not only that, but there are a lot of dungeons to check out, along with monster encounters, secrets and so much more. It just won’t be as wide open as, say, Assassin’s Creed Origins was, in terms of giving the player a lot of activities to partake in.

Fans may recognize a number of these items from previous games in the series. They weren’t entirely open-world either, but still tell enough of a story and give you enough leeway with your character that they’re worth investing hours of time into. And you’ve still got a few months to check them out before the newest game in the series arrives, in case you need a revisit.

No worries, though — Dragon Quest XI will still take up a great deal of time and fans will find it to be a worthwhile addition to the series. You’ll be able to check it out when it arrives later this year for PlayStation 4 and PC, with a Nintendo Switch release to follow sometime after that.

(Hat tip to GamingBolt for the scoop!)