It’s been a long time coming, but Square Enix has finally come forth with confirmation that Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age will indeed be coming Westward sometime in 2018. It’s the perfect time to announce this, too, since today the game is releasing in Japan.
The news was accompanied by a special video message from Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, who offered up an overview of the game in general as well as a few updates on the localization process for the game. Smiling among several adorable Slimes, he announced that it’ll be localized in five different languages, and that the team is “working hard” to get the game to everyone as soon as possible.
The game is out for both PlayStation 4 and Nintendo 3DS players in Japan, and there’s a Switch release on the horizon as well. Nintendo typically publishes the games in the United States and Europe, so it’s likely we’ll see the game release on the Switch and Nintendo 3DS as well in the west, but nothing concrete has been confirmed just yet.
The 3DS version is rendered in a different style entirely than the PlayStation 4 version, with 3D graphics on the top screen and 16-bit sprites on the bottom screen. You can swap between both versions of the game at your discretion, which is a pretty cool feature.
There’s also no date for when we can expect to see the game beyond the nebulous “2018,” but we’re going to need a little buffer room beyond the ridiculously packed fall we have before us. With games like Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus and Super Mario Odyssey on the horizon, we’re going to need some breathing space between games before diving into a charming new Japanese role-playing game. Hey, it’s not too late to get started playing the previous games in the series if you start right now, either. There’s a whole lot of ground to cover, but you can make it through them all (probably) if you hurry.
