After the series riffed on Pokemon Go and Minecraft, former Dragon Quest producer says he left Square Enix after growing frustrated with "safe" spinoff proposals that were "copying others"

The former producer of the Dragon Quest series has spoken about why he left Square Enix, claiming it was down to the company making "copycat" games with the franchise.

Dragon Quest is the reason we're playing JRPGs today. Pre-dating Final Fantasy, the series established so many of the tropes found in the genre, and still to this day the series is (very slowly) putting out entries that people fall in love with, to the point where even the Switch version of the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake remake was the second best selling game in Japan in 2024 (combined with the PS5 edition it beats out Super Mario Party Jamboree and becomes number 1).

Former Dragon Quest series producer Ryutaro Ichimura, who was involved in Dragon Quest 8, 9, and a number of spinoffs, spoke to ReHacQ (translated by Automaton) about why he left Square Enix in 2023, and it was partly to do with how the company treated Dragon Quest.

"In DQ 2, you had a three-person party, in DQ 3, you could change jobs, in DQ 4, party members could fight using AI. Each entry pushed the series forward, both through the evolution of game mechanics and by leveraging the latest hardware of the time." Ichimura explained, adding that he wanted the series to continue to be a "leader."

However, as the cost of game development rose with the introduction of the 3D era, sales had to be higher to make the development worth it. Ichimura claims that this led to Square Enix trying to pivot the franchise into projects based on games that were already successful. We saw some of this with Dragon Quest Builders, the Dragon Quest-take on Minecraft, and the Pokemon Go-inspired Dragon Quest Walk.

Ichimura said, "To put it bluntly, it was copying others." He also claimed that Square proposed takes on PUBG and Line: Disney Tsum Tsum. He mentioned this caused frustration with him as he wanted the series to continue its genre leader status, plus proposals of his own were shot down, including a "Dragon Quest Maker" game in the vein of Super Mario Maker, but where you'd build your own Dragon Quest instead.

So to avoid working on "safe" projects for the rest of his career, Ichimura left Square Enix and formed PinCool, under NetEase Games. The studio is currently developing an asymmetrical multiplayer prison break game called Pritto Prisoner, with the game's website showing off its mechanics, including your "poopie and peepee" powers.

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