Square Enix has surprised gamers today by announcing that it is set to port and re-release the first eight games in the mainDragon Quest series for mobile devices. So Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest II, Dragon Quest III, Dragon Quest IV, Dragon Quest V,Dragon Quest VI, Dragon Quest VII, and Dragon Quest VIII will all be getting a mobile outing for both Android and iOS devices.
So far the ports are only confirmed as heading to Japan, but it seems likely Square Enix will release English versions of the games in other territories. Why wouldn’t they? A lot of the translation work has already been done from previous releases of the games.
It’s not just the main Dragon Quest series that is heading to mobile devices, though. Square Enix has also announced Dragon Quest Monsters: Super Light is in development for iOS andAndroid. Monsters is a spin off series of Dragon Quest, which sees the focus put on capturing and breeding monsters that are then used by the player to fight.
This decision by Square Enix to port so many of the games from a key series demonstrates the growing importance of mobile to game developers/publishers. Where as before we’d expect Dragon Quest releases on dedicated games consoles and handheld devices, now the focus is switching to smartphones and tablets. Sure, these are old games, but Square Enix wouldn’t spend the time re-releasing them if it didn’t think there was a healthy profit to be made.
The latest title in the Dragon Quest series–Dragon Quest X hasn’t seen a release outside of Japan on either of its launch platforms: the Wii and Wii U. And that seems unlikely to happen now as Square Enix has turned its focus to getting the game running on a tablet instead. That combined with the publisher’s new focus on free-to-play could mean the next new game developed in theDragon Quest series may end up appearing on mobile devices first.
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