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While Dragon Quest XI has been available in Japan on Playstation 4 and Nintendo 3DS since 2017, we are still waiting for it to make its way West, and Nintendo fans will apparently have the longest wait of all.
Speaking to IGN, Square Enix has now said that:
“Our aim with Dragon Quest XI and the Dragon Quest brand is to grow the audience in the West. From a business point of view, it made strategic sense to release the 3DS version in Japan in 2017. For the West in 2018, it made the most sense to focus on the PlayStation 4 and PC (Steam) platforms.”
Apparently the Nintendo 3DS version of the game will not be coming to the West at all. The representative from Square Enix also said that the Switch version would definitely not be released in 2018 and could eventually end up being released “much later”.
This will surely frustrate fans of the series with Nintendo consoles, who may now have to look elsewhere for a quick RPG fix.
For everyone else, the game is set to arrive in North America on September 4 on both Playstation 4 and PC.
Source: Siliconera
This news is disappointing to me, only because I believe (could be wrong) that Dragon Quest XI was one of the earliest confirmed games for Switch (a vague confirmation by Square-Enix back when Switch was still “Nintendo NX”)
I’ll play through it in September on PS4. I can’t say I’ll be tempted to double dip when it does eventually come to Switch, only because my Switch rarely leaves its dock so the benefit of playing it on the go isn’t a huge incentive for me.
However (speaking of portability), I’m a little disappointed that the 3DS version won’t come stateside. I get the fact that 3DS is slowly heading off into the sunset, but the novelty of simultaneously playing a game in 3D (top screen) and old school 2D (bottom screen) had piqued my interest. This will be another great handheld RPG to never be localized, much like Mother 3 and Ni No Kuni (DS version).