Dragon Quest X confirmed for Wii U

By Robert Purchese Published 5 September, 2011

An online RPG for Wii as well.

Dragon Quest X will be a Wii U and Wii game, Square Enix has announced.

It's an online RPG.

DQX will be released in 2012.

The announcement was made at a Dragon Quest conference in Japan today, reported by Andriasang.

Dragon Quest X will, for the first time, be developed internally at Square Enix. Series familiars Yuji Hori, Koichi Sugiyama and Akira Toriyama return as designer, composer and character designer, respectively.

The Wii U version of Dragon Quest X will have better graphics. Both versions - Wii and Wii U - will be compatible with each other.

Square Enix is thinking about allowing 3DS owners to transfer their DQX characters to the handheld for Spot Pass data exchanges.

There may be an online fee for Dragon Quest X. A post on the official Dragon Quest website mentioned both "price" and "usage fee", although both were listed as TBA.

Square Enix will be beta testing Dragon Quest X before its release. Details will be forthcoming shortly, apparently.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (31) Latest comment 9 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Der_tolle_Emil #1 9 months ago

    This would make a phenomenal launch title for the Wii U, I'm sure it would sell like crazy.

  • Cid #2 9 months ago

    Oh what the fuck. An MMO? Seriously?

  • menage #3 9 months ago

    No way this is going to really launch at Wii U's launch.

    And yeah, online in Japan??? I loved DQVIII but hated IX (felt like one big random sidequest). But seeing as SE and MMO's don't mix this will probably suck balls.
    Edited by menage at 05/09/11 @ 08:46

  • abigsmurf #4 9 months ago

    Video: [link url=http://nintendoeverything.com/73066/
    ]http://nintendoeverything.com/73066/
    [/link]

    Looks worse than DQVIII (probably because of the number of characters on screen at once), has MMO style real time combat rather than being turn based. There is a single player mode but it involves creating AI characters that you have no control over. Crafting/alchemy looks much more involved this time.

    Although a DQ MMO is fairly exciting, I'm dissapointed it's come at the expense of a new single player DQ. Hopefully we'll get a 3DS/Vita remake of VII though...

  • Apaar #5 9 months ago

    I was really hoping for something like DQ VIII, definitely not an MMO. Funny since beforehand they even hyped it up as generally following the design of 8.

  • bobfish09 #6 9 months ago

    It doesn't have MMO combat, in fact it doesn't look like an MMO, more like PSO, with a lobby town system and then instanced adventure areas.

    The combat is like FFXII, still the same menu system for selecting attacks, but the really slow real time turns.

  • RoOhDaMite #7 9 months ago

    Why is Square Enix so eager at screwing up their franchises by including these "MMO-attempts" into the main canon. These are clearly spin-offs and should be labeled as such.

  • NOSAVIOUR #8 9 months ago

    EG should report better... "Can be played from start to finish 100% solo and just because it's online doesn't mean there isn't a full script with NPCs and such, so you can take from start to finish to the ending by yourself."

    Look in the forum for further details.

  • abigsmurf #9 9 months ago

    @bobfish09

    At 3:00 when they're fighting the golem in that vid, you can see a whole bunch of people who aren't in the 4 man party running around, going about their business whilst the party is in combat. If areas are instanced in some way, they're not private and can have lots of people in them.

    Seems like a full MMO to me.

  • FanBoysSuck #10 9 months ago

    Sounds interesting, especially with the cross platform stuff. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

  • KDR_11k #11 9 months ago

    I expect rioting on the streets in Japan. DQIX was planned to have realtime combat until SE received a massive backlash. Dragon Quest is selling because it's the one constant in RPGs, not mixed up with new systems but still playing like RPGs did back in the NES days. There's a reason the mainline Pokemon games use the same kind of battle system and are so resistant to change.

  • kassmageant #12 9 months ago

    " Both versions - Wii and Wii U - will be compatible with each other." - oh really, so what about the friend code BS on wii? they said it will be absent from wii u

    also - they didn't learned anything from FF XIV, didn't they? : P and if it will succeed - i don't see it catching up elsewhere than in japan. DQ IX succeed because it provided mmo fix on handheld system - in which it was unique offering, but this? - plenty better choices out there

  • Incarta #13 9 months ago

    "Dragon Quest X will, for the first time, be developed internally at Square Enix."

    AGH!

    *runs over the horizon*
    Edited by Incarta at 05/09/11 @ 10:57

  • Ryze #14 9 months ago

    Hopefully Ninty will be smart, and make the Wii U drive support a dual-layer disc, with a (4.37GB) DVD-ROM layer that the Wii can read, and a transparent (25GB) BD-ROM layer that that the Wii U can access.

    That way they can sell one game to both sets of customers. If they don't do this, then they're stupid, basically.

  • Nikanoru #15 9 months ago

    @NOSAVIOUR:

    Who cares? Singleplayer mode is going to be awful bullshit, like it is with every multiplayer-focused game that has a singleplayer mode tacked on.


    @kassmageant: "oh really, so what about the friend code BS on wii?"

    Someone's going to say this so I might as well: developers don't have to use friend codes. Monster Hunter didn't. And I'm preeetttyyy sure an MMO of all things isn't going to have them, lol.

  • FortysixterUK #16 9 months ago

    Pay to play...fail...in the west at least.
    And why the hell isn't this a single player game like all the others?

  • TheBrotha #17 9 months ago

    Wrong console in my opinion. The Wii is in decline and the Wii U is already under suspicion of potential failure. Maybe this should be the first DQ to be multiplatform?

  • WAusJackBauer #18 9 months ago

    Errr, is that a screenshot of the Wii version or the Wii U version? If its the Wii U one, lol @ Nintendo.

  • abigsmurf #19 9 months ago

    @Ryze

    Why would they want to do that? Dual layer discs like that are expensive to press. They'd have an issue with the branding on the packaging (displaying both Wii and Wii U branding would be confusing and stores wouldn't know where to put the games).

    Ultimately though, it would stop gamers buying it first on the Wii, then buying it again when they upgrade to a Wii U. Why would Square-Enix want to stop people spending twice as much on their products?

  • Nanakai #20 9 months ago

    I don't want to play RPG's with other people FFS. Keep the MMORPGS as a spin off series, stop messing up my numbered collection with this crap

  • BonzoBanana #21 9 months ago

    I'm not very inspired by that image. Hope its at least the wii version and not wii u.

  • kitsuneyo #22 9 months ago

    IGN or Andriasang is reporting that the game can be played and completed offline.

    We hardly know anything about this game, other than a few features that sound pretty interesting to me, and people are already moaning.

    Personally I like the graphic style and it should look a lot better on WiiU, which is the version I'll be getting if I buy this at all. I'd rather not judge it on one screen and a handful of vague details.

  • Toothball #23 9 months ago

    @TheBrotha

    It might not be the wrong console. DQ games have always been made for the platform that most people seem to have. The last one went to the DS as they were all over the place at the time. DQ games in Japan are popular with the general public as far as I understand, not just gamers. These days there are a great number of families with Wiis already even if the early excitement has died down a bit. Plus, the newer, cheaper models of Wii will likely mean that it's less expensive for those without any console from this generation.

    Wrong console for gamers perhaps, but not for the game.

  • madeinbeats #24 9 months ago

    "Wrong console in my opinion. The Wii is in decline and the Wii U is already under suspicion of potential failure."

    Based on the silly juvenile tripe from anti-Nintendo Sony & MS fanboys?

    Really ... ... do you really base your thoughts on the mind farts of dick heads? No, please; please answer the question; I want to see you write that you take seriously what fanboys say like they really know what they're talking about. O .. M .. F .. G ..

    Average IQ of EG users reaches new all time low. F me...
    Edited by madeinbeats at 05/09/11 @ 15:10

  • Phoenisis #25 9 months ago

    A fucking MMO? Piss off Squeenix. Guess It's not too surprising after the success they and Level 5 got with DQIX, which already adopted several MMO-style mechanics and traits (like the complete lack of companion characters and the heavy focus on a grindy post-game rather than story), and was a worse game for it.

    For good or bad, the DQ series has been one of the most static in the world, with very few fundamental changes over the last couple decades. Suddenly turning it into an entirely different genre is idiotic. But it's their biggest moneymaker, so I guess they figured it would be able to belatedly get them aboard the MMO cash train. Of course it won't, just like all the other failed pretenders.
    Edited by Phoenisis at 05/09/11 @ 20:33

  • Ryze #26 9 months ago

    @abigsmurf

    I guess. Or they may not buy it, or the Wii U at all.

    It'll be nice to wait and see how Nintendo go about selling their new console, considering they couldn't even unveil it effectively.

  • Makeem95 #27 9 months ago

    Because making the latest FF an MMO was such a success, it's sure to work on the DQ series....

  • EndlessSolitude #28 9 months ago

    Looked at one of the videos here:

    [link url=http://www.n-europe.com/news.php?nid=16213
    ]http://www.n-europe.com/news.php?nid=16213
    [/link]

    Compared to Xenoblade or Earth Seeker, it didn't seem very impressive.
    Just a first impression:

  • ilmaestro #29 9 months ago

    :(

  • Nikanoru #30 9 months ago

    Let's all hope that the japanese complain to Squenix hard enough so that they'll make a real game out of this. They managed to get DQ9's battle system changed back after all.

  • Mr_Brown #31 9 months ago

    Hmm, I'm not sure about this. So long as it is more like DQIX rather than FFXI. Cannot see this being good over here, as there just won't be that many people willing to pay sub fees in Europe to fill servers. I hope this ends up being good and they also cut the subscription fee from the western version to build up a user base.

    As for the lack of single player, well I would be happy for them to provide this on handheld systems. A Dragon Quest VIII type game on the Vita would be excellent.