'Dragon Quest XI' News: Devs Thought of Making the Latest Installment an Open-World Game

Newest installment of the series expected to be made available in the west sometime this year

By John Paul Sunico, Christian Post Contributor Thursday, January 25, 2018

"Dragon Quest XI" stands out in this modern era of gaming.

While more and more Japanese role-playing games are starting to take cues from their western counterparts, the latest installment in the long-running series opted to stick to its roots by delivering the kind of old school gameplay that is becoming harder to find.

Battles are still turn-based, and progression, while not completely linear, still goes along an easy-to-follow track.

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Judging by how well the game sold in Japan last year, it seems like many fans are still embracing the traditional mechanics. However, it was revealed that there was a point in development when the game could have gone down a very different path.

During an interview with DenfaminicoGamer, series creator Yuji Horii revealed that they previously thought about making "Dragon Quest XI" an open-world game, Siliconera reported.

Horii indicated that the idea to pursue an open-world "Dragon Quest" emerged early on in the development cycle.

The series creator also mentioned that he believes it can be difficult to create a good flow for an overarching narrative when players can just go where they want to right away.

Perhaps that desire to tell the story as they wanted was what prompted the developers to drop the idea of fully going with an open-world model. Still, as Horii indicated, there are some hints of open-world elements in the game, and maybe those were left in just to see how they would fit in with the series.

It will be interesting to see how fans in the west react to the new "Dragon Quest" game and whether they will embrace it for its old-school charm or whether they will wish that it featured other elements.

"Dragon Quest XI" is set to be released in the west sometime this year, and it is expected to be made available on the PS4, Nintendo 3DS and maybe even the Nintendo Switch.