The latest Dragon Quest comes to the West this September, and as a first for the main series the game will launch on PC. Square Enix are apparently not satisfied with just bringing their other big RPG franchise to PC, and if the quality of the Final Fantasy XV port is any indication we’re in for another treat.
DQ11 is likely to be a strong contender among the best RPGs on PC.
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age releases September 4 on Steam for $59.99 / £39.99 / €59.99. The Steam page promises a handful of pre-order bonuses, including a set of wallpapers, and some in-game items including 15 consumable skill point seeds and the Wings of Serendipity to draw in rare forms of regular monster.
As with many of its predecessors, DQ11 is a standalone story, this time casting you as a reincarnated hero on the run from a massive army. There’s a diverse cast of companions to recruit, a giant world to explore, and plenty of classic, turn-based JRPG combat. Square Enix promise 100 hours of content between the main story and side quests, which could sound either enticing or terrifying depending on how much free time you’ve got to burn.
Releasing a year and a half after the original Japanese version, the English release gets some extra features in addition to the translation and new voiceovers. There’s a hard mode called “Draconian Quest,” an inspired name even by the standards of DQ’s excellent pun history. The UI and menus have been redesigned, there’s now a camera mode for taking a better look at the world, and a new dash function joins a handful of other improvements to character movement.
It’ll be terrific to have a more traditional big-scale RPG from Square Enix on PC, especially a mainline Dragon Quest title. (No offense to Dragon Quest Heroes.) The wall between PC and console games cracks a little more every day.