Dragon Quest 11 loos incredible on the Nintendo 3DS ad PlayStation 4- so it’s a bit of a bummer that those of us who live outside of Japan still can’t even be sure if we’ll be playing it. Localization of the game has not officially been announced- and according to remarks made by Square Enix producer Yuu Miyake in an interview with Polygon, that’s because it will all depend on how the upcoming Dragon Quest Builders, the Minecraft clone that the franchise is releasing, fares in the west when it releases this Fall.
“The series has a Japanese nature to it, a cultural nature, that people in Japan will get right away,” Miyake said. “Localizing [Dragon Quest Builders] has definitely been a challenge to make sure it has the same feel, the same warmth,” he said, before teasing that the localization of the eleventh game in the series could be contingent on how well or poorly Builders does.
Of course, I find this singularly disingenuous- not only have Dragon Quest games done well in the west of late (the DS Dragon Quest 9, in particular, did extremely well), but the 3DS ports of Dragon Quest 7 and 8, which are releasing later this year, would be better barometers to judge whether or not the eleventh game in the seres is worth localizing over sales of a low key spin-off. None of this is to say that I don’t think the localization is contingent on any such thing to begin with- I truly believe Dragon Quest 11 will be localized for PS4, and possible for Nintendo 3DS too. Horrific sales of Builders will not stop that.
