Dragon Quest Builders 2 looks to take the original game, which was a charming take on Minecraft, but in a Dragon Quest skin, and expand upon it in every way imaginable. One of those ways will be the way in which it seeks to challenge players more and give them more direction to improve their building skills.
It will do this via something called “Builder Puzzles”, which will be scattered all through the world of Occulum Island, where the game takes place. Builder Puzzles are essentially exactly what they sound like—specific challenges for you to complete, with given objectives and limitations. Square Enix promises that “something good may happen if you complete them”, and says players should scour the whole island to try and find as many of them as possible. I imagine cool new loot or skills will be gated behind these Builder Puzzles.
Dragon Quest Builders 2 launches on December 20 for PS4 and Nintendo Switch in Japan. A western release date hasn’t been announced. If you want to know why that’s a bad thing, just look at how good it looks in the newest bit of gameplay footage that we got for it.