Ahead of the December 4 release of Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition on PS4, PC, and Xbox One, DualShockers recently had the opportunity to interview the game's staff. Speaking with Director Masato Yagi, and Producer Hokuto Okamoto, we have a few new details on how Square Enix created the Definitive Edition to one of the best JRPGs of the last decade.Note that if you'd like to try out Dragon Quest XI S right now, a demo has just been released, with ten hours of content.


The release of Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition on Xbox One will make history, with the Dragon Quest series coming to the Xbox family for the first time. Do you have some comments to share regarding this new page in the history of Dragon Quest?

Masato Yagi, Director: I feel that it is a great development. Going forward I want to continue being able to let many different people enjoy the games on many different hardware platforms like this.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition includes the Nintendo 3DS version of the game, with players being able to switch to its 2D style at save points. When it comes to the technical side of things, did you encounter certain challenges with what we could call porting a Nintendo 3DS game to Switch, PS4, PC and Xbox One?

Masato Yagi: The player's field of vision is different on the 3DS version, so we needed to adjust the characters' size and event scenes in line with that, which was relatively hard work.

The new marriage options for the protagonist in Definitive Edition include male options. What inspired the development team to include these options?

Hokuto Okamoto, Producer: This was done because there was a demand to be able to select your favorite party character. Also, it is not marriage, but living together with that character, so please do not misunderstand.

What made the team decide to offer a fully orchestrated OST option for the first time in the Dragon Quest franchise? What were some of the challenges involved in making that proposal?

Hokuto Okamoto: The orchestral recordings were carried out at the time we were working on the Definitive Edition and we implemented them because we wanted to provide the player with an even richer game experience. There are those who feel that the synthesized music fits better with the pixel sprites in the 2D mode, so we put both in to allow players to play in the way they like.

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition includes both a Photo Mode and a highly accelerated battle speed mode. Could you tell us the reasons behind these new additions?

Masato Yagi: They came from us thinking about how we could make Dragon Quest XI S a game that could be enjoyed by those who had already played the PS4 or 3DS versions of the game, those playing for the first time with XI S, and also newcomers for whom it will be their first time playing the Dragon Quest series.


Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition will be available December 4 on PC via Windows 10 and Steam, PS4, Xbox One and Xbox Game Pass. The game is already available on Switch. Together with the original version of the game, DQ XI already sold over 6 million copies worldwide.

Dragon Quest main creator Yuji Horii recently teased new announcements for the 35th anniversary of the series in 2021. Square Enix is also currently developing a console game for Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai.