Dragon Quest 12: Beyond Dreams gets a new trailer and a new look

The new footage comes as the RPG series marks its 40th anniversary

On Wednesday, Square Enix held a livestream event on YouTube to mark the 40th anniversary of the Dragon Quest series, which debuted in Japan on May 27, 1986. The 10-minute presentation featured the first new footage of Dragon Quest 12, now subtitled "Beyond Dreams," since Square Enix first revealed the game back in 2021, as part of the 35th anniversary celebration of the venerable RPG franchise. While the game initially aimed to be a darker spin on the series, the team has since rebooted the project to a more traditional and upbeat Dragon Quest story, with a visual style to match. Here's everything we learned about Dragon Quest 12: Beyond Dreams.

"We're hard at work on 12, but due to a reshuffle of the team and a restart of development, it's going to be a bit longer until it's in your hands," said executive producer Yosuke Saito. "Work on the original version, Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate, hit a lot of hurdles along the way. But as we kept talking with Mr. Horii and pinned down what a mainline Dragon Quest game should look like, we decided to move things around and start from scratch. It was a major decision, but I believe it was the right one to ensure the next Dragon Quest game will be one that all you fans of the series will really love. As part of this new direction, we've also changed the game's logo and subtitle."

The new footage opens with views of a stunning castle, quaint medieval towns, and rugged landscapes. The camera pans to a spiky-haired warrior — presumably our protagonist — with light brown hair, an undercut, and a brooding gaze. He has a sword slung over his right shoulder. He leaps from the hillside with an acrobatic roll and breaks into a sprint across the verdant field. The background shifts to a sun-speckled beach with hovering, octopus-like Healslimes, then to a sandy desert where a large scorpion trundles in the distance.

We then see someone who appears to be one of the hero's companions: a girl with short, red hair piloting some sort of bicycle contraption, accompanied by a bulbous humanoid robot. (I already love them.) She's got a tattoo on her left bicep and throws her mechanical companion a thumbs-up. From there, we meet another companion, who appears to be an adolescent lizard-man with spiky gray hair wearing similar armor to the hero. The shot then shifts to the top of a grand castle, where a knight in red and purple armor gestures with their hands. They wear a horned helmet that obscures their face, only to lift the visor and reveal — another lizard face! It's not clear yet if it's the same character as the previous shot.

The camera shifts back to the protagonist in a cave, fighting — you guessed it! — a formidable dragon wearing armor.

Once the trailer concluded, series creator Yuji Horii revealed more details about the game. Our protagonist is "beset by strange visions in their sleep. What lies beyond dreams? Surely not a world of darkness, but a bright and exciting future." Horii concluded by saying, "All I'll add is that Dragon Quest 12, like every game before it, will come with Akira Toriyama's characters and Koichi Sugiyama's music."

Saito and Horii did not reveal a release date or release window for Dragon Quest 12: Beyond Dreams.

The 2021 teaser for Dragon Quest 12: Flames of Fate had hinted at a far darker atmosphere for the typically sunny RPG series, with jagged lines of flame bursting from beneath grey-black stone in the shape of the Roman numeral for 12, followed by a growling Japanese narration of the game's title. The teaser didn't include any in-engine footage or key art; it didn't even feature a modern riff on the franchise's iconic theme song. Instead, it simply let fans know that a successor to 2017's hugely popular Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age was currently in development. Dragon Quest 12: Beyond Dreams already feels much truer to the series formula than the moody, broody vibes of Flames of Fate.

According to Square Enix, the Dragon Quest series has sold more than 95 million units since it debuted back in 1986. The biggest hit of the bunch was Dragon Quest 11, which has sold more than 8.5 million copies worldwide. Earlier this month, Dragon Quest was one of four new inductees into the Video Game Hall of Fame at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. Fellow inductees for 2026 include Angry Birds, FIFA International Soccer, and Silent Hill.