Dragon Quest 11 was the first game ever announced for the Nintendo Switch, back when the platform was still known as the NX- but a year and a half into the Switch’s life, we still don’t know when it will actually be out. The PS4 and 3DS versions launched in Japan last year, and the PS4 and PC versions will launch in the west this year- but there’s been no sign of the Switch version whatsoever.
That said, director Takeshi Uchikawa and producers Hokuto Okamoto and Hikari Kubota of Square Enix assured Polygon during E3 2018 that the game is still very much in development on the Switch- but that there are issues they need to work out first.
“We’re making it,” said Okamoto. “We’re still making it. I can’t say anything more.”
Speaking about why the Switch version has had such a long time from announcement to whenever it does release, Okamoto was pretty candid, saying that the Switch version was announced before Square even had the development kits, or knew if it would be able to run the game.
“When we first announced [Dragon Quest 11], the Switch hadn’t come out yet, and the development kit also wasn’t finalized,” he said. “The hardware specs weren’t out yet, but we were like, ‘We can manage this. We can put this out on the Switch.’”
When Polygon tried to get some idea of when the Switch version might finally see a release, Okamoto said that the team is “taking care of all those many things” that need adjustments for the Switch version, and then requested that they stop asking them about it.
So- I guess this means that it will be a bit of a wait for the Switch version of the game, whenever it does end up launching. Meanwhile, if you do want to play Dragon Quest 11, it launches on the PS4 and PC this Sptember.