A new Dragon Quest Monsters is in development for Nintendo Switch

And it looks like this one might actually release outside of Japan

Friday night before an extended holiday weekend is arguably the worst time for companies to release video game news. Most people have gone home, and those of us who are still around have to make the choice between enjoying our free time and dragging our butts back to our laptops to crank out one more story for the day. For most games, I’d wait until Monday. But when you’re talking Dragon Quest Monsters, you have my attention.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the  spin-off. The series is a monster-collecting take on the franchise, something developers had explored years earlier in Dragon Quest V. The first two games were released on the Game Boy Color, with the second title hitting right at the end of the handheld’s life cycle. Maybe it was the fact that nothing could beat Pokémon at the time, or maybe it was because the Dragon Quest brand didn’t have the international appeal it does now, but the DQM series has had an inconsistent reputation for getting worldwide releases. The Game Boy Color games both made it over to North America. Dragon Quest Monsters: Caravan Heart, which was released on the Game Boy Advance, was never localized. Both Nintendo DS entries in the series—Dragon Quest Monsters Joker and Dragon Quest Monsters Joker 2—sco🍷red worldwide releases, but every game developed on the 3DS stayed ♉in Japan.

Given that Square Enix is still pretty shaky on whether or not a Dragon Quest game will go worldwide (looking at you, Dragon Quest X Offline), the video below gives me hope we’ll see the series on our shores in the near future.

If you made it through to the end, you’ll see that a new Dragon Quest Monsters is in development for the Nintendo Switch. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard that Square Enix is revisiting the franchise. During a stream two years ago, it was revealed a new DQM was in development. It’s been all quiet since then, and while I would have liked to have seen some footage, it is nice to know that we have this to look forward to in the future. It’s also nice to know the Nintendo Switch still has some support going forward.

As for this new Monsters getting a worldwide release, well, why bother translating any of that video into English if you ain’t gonna bring it our way?