Dragon Quest passes 100 million sales in its 40th year

Square Enix announced on 16 September that the Dragon Quest franchise has sold more than 100 million games. The milestone lands in the series' 40th anniversary year, and the publisher marked it with a short thank-you video from creator Yuji Horii rather than a press event, pointing instead at the remakes, a spin-off and a new mainline entry still to come.

The 100 million figure is cumulative. Square Enix counts package shipments and digital sales together, and only counts digital units from April 2015 onwards, including full-game downloads of boxed releases and download-only console and PC titles. In practice that means the number is a measure of 40 years of shelf life across a lot of hardware, not the aftermath of one hit.

The first Dragon Quest released in Japan in 1986 and the series now runs to 11 main entries, with spin-offs, films, anime, novels, manga and merchandise layered on top. It has spent four decades as the Japanese role-playing game's most reliable institution, built on turn-based battles, Akira Toriyama's character designs and a self-contained story in every instalment.

Why the remakes are doing the heavy lifting

Square Enix has spent the last two years rebuilding the back catalogue rather than only chasing new sales. Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake and Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake tell the complete Erdrick Trilogy again in the studio's HD-2D style, with added story content and reworked systems. Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, released earlier this year, rebuilt the 2000 original with Akira Toriyama's designs rendered in a hand-crafted 3D, diorama-inspired look, and Dragon Quest Heroes: Torneko's Mystery Dungeon -Classic HD- followed more recently.

What is still coming

Dragon Quest XII: Beyond Dreams remains in development as the next mainline game, still without a date. Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age arrives on Nintendo Switch 2 on 24 September, and Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World, the newest entry in the monster-collecting spin-off line, launches on 3 December for Switch 2, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC via Steam and Xbox on PC.

Our opinion

One hundred million sounds like a victory lap, and for a series that spent its first two decades almost entirely inside Japan, it is. Dragon Quest has never had the reflex reach of Final Fantasy or the cross-generational ubiquity of Pokémon; what it has is a home audience that treats each new entry as a national celebration and a back catalogue that keeps getting remade for whoever missed it first time. The number Square Enix is celebrating is really the value of that patience.

The more interesting question is where the next 100 million comes from. Square Enix treated the West as an afterthought for years, and the current multiplatform push - Dragon Quest Monsters: The Withered World arriving day and date on Switch, PlayStation, Xbox and PC - is the clearest admission yet that a Japan-first release calendar caps how big the series can get. A 40th anniversary is a fine moment to say thank you. It is also the moment to stop making everyone outside Japan wait.