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It was rumored that this announcement would be coming soon, and not so surprisingly, at today's Dragon Quest event in Japan, Dragon Quest XI was confirmed to be in development. They did drop a very surprising bit of news though when they said that the game was being brought to both the PS4 and the 3DS.

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The PS4 version is being developed with Unreal Engine 4, and Square Enix is hoping that they can use the PS4 to its full capacity while creating this game. The 3DS version will be made by the same core group of members making the PS4 version, and although it will obviously be different due to massive hardware differences, it will still follow the same story.

PS4 Version Gameplay
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Dragon Quest XI will have staple features from the series as well as the ability to jump, a more lively world where NPCs interact more, and for the first time, the ability to climb and fully explore environments. Monster encounters will be symbol encounters, meaning you'll run into them on the field to initiate the encounter.

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The 3DS version of the game will have "chibi styled" characters, and while the top screen shows the modern version of the game, the bottom screen will show an SNES-era look. The top screen will show symbol encounters, while the bottom screen will show a random encounter as it occurs.

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To top off this announcement, they also said that they were considering development for Nintendo's mysterious NX, although the word "considering" should be noted. There are no concrete plans for an NX version at this time.

3DS Version Gameplay
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Overall though, this is clearly an effort to first make the game the team wants to make, the large, beautiful PS4 version, and then the version that appeals the best to Japan's market, the 3DS handheld version. It's undeniably an interesting and potentially very smart move.

There was no mention of any kind of localization at this time seeing as this was a Japanese event, but numbered Dragon Quest titles have a habit of getting localized outside of odd circumstances, so I wouldn't worry too much. The question is really about which version will eventually come west, both, or just the PS4 version? They're focused on getting the game out in Japan around Dragon Quest's 30th Anniversary, which is coming up next year.

Check out the Siliconera source for more screenshots from the event, or check out the event reveal video from the live coverage.

Siliconera
Ongoing Discussion
Event Reveal (Japanese)

 

[Prans]

psst... psst... Apparently Dragon Quest X and Dragon Quest XI will come out for the NX as well...

 

[Nathan Drake]

psst... psst... Apparently Dragon Quest X and Dragon Quest XI will come out for the NX as well...

Famitsu has reported from an SE press release that they are currently only under consideration. I mentioned as such about DQXI in my post, although I didn't specifically mention Famitsu. Also, in the future, any corrections you feel may need to be made should either be mentioned in the discussion thread for a post, or PM'd directly to me to prevent conversation in locked news topics.

 

[Prans]

Famitsu has reported from an SE press release that they are currently only under consideration. I mentioned as such about DQXI in my post, although I didn't specifically mention Famitsu. Also, in the future, any corrections you feel may need to be made should either be mentioned in the discussion thread for a post, or PM'd directly to me to prevent conversation in locked news topics.

Alright! Noted!