Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii recently discussed and explained how the series’ silent protagonist will be a major challenge for the series moving forward as graphics continue to improve.
Yuji Horri via Dragon Quest YouTube
In an interview with Denfamicogamer via Automaton West alongside Metaphor: ReFantazio director Katsura Hashino, Horri was asked (translation done with DeepL), “The ‘manga protagonist’ has a personality, a will, and a personal purpose. On the other hand, the main character in Dragon Quest does not speak on his own, does he? Did you feel any difficulty in creating a ‘game protagonist’?”
Horri responded, “It was not difficult to create. Even with a symbolic protagonist, the players themselves could imagine the various reactions of the protagonist, or they could become emotionally involved in the protagonist’s character and move him or her as if he or she were the main character.”
A screenshot from Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (2018), Square Enix
While he noted it was not difficult to create the character, he did note that moving forward keeping the character silent will be a difficult.
Horri explained, “However, as game graphics evolve and become more realistic, a protagonist who just stands there looks like an idiot (laughs). But if you make him react in an exaggerated way, the player will think, ‘This is not me.’ Therefore, a protagonist like the one in Dragon Quest becomes more and more difficult as the game becomes more realistic. This is an issue for the future.”
A screenshot from Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (2018), Square Enix
Keeping players immersed in any kind of fiction is paramount to determine whether or not the fiction is successful and the creator achieves his purpose in creating a Secondary World.
J.R.R. Tolkien explained this idea in his essay On Fairy Stories nothing a a story-maker proves himself a successful sub-creator when he “makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is ‘true’: it accords with the laws of that world. You therefore believe it, while you are, as it were, inside.”
Tolkien added, “The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed. You are then out in the Primary World again, looking at the little abortive Secondary World from outside. If you are obliged, by kindliness or circumstance, to stay, then disbelief must be suspended (or stifled), otherwise listening and looking would become intolerable. But this suspension of disbelief is a substitute for the genuine thing, a subterfuge we use when condescending to games or make-believe, or when trying (more or less willingly) to find what virtue we can in the work of an art that has for us failed.”
Clearly Horri recognizes that having a silent protagonist will be harder and harder to keep players immersed as improvements in graphics continue.
A screenshot from Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (2018), Square Enix
Horri is working on Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate, which was announced back in May 2021 during Dragon Quest’s 35th Anniversary special. Horri noted during the announcement that the game will be darker and it will be a Dragon Quest for adults. He also noted the game will seemingly allow players to choose their own way to play and at least one of the decisions the character or player makes could change the whole game.
He also detailed that the combat system would be changed, but did not provide any significant details on how it would be changed or what it would look like.
In May, Horii confirmed that the game was still in development and he was aiming to “making something worthy of the posthumous work of the two people who passed away.”
He added, “I’ll do my best!”
Yuji Horri on X
What do you make of Horri’s comments regarding this challenge? How do you think he will handle it for future installments?
