Square Enix is asking players of Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake not to share photos or videos of what happens at the end of the nearly 40-year-old RPGs, or it will have to take them down.
While it's taking forever for Dragon Quest 12 to emerge from its cave, Square Enix is going all in with remakes for the series, starting with Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake in 2024. This is followed by Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake releasing this week and Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined arriving in February 2026. But despite Dragon Quest 1 and 2 releasing in 1986 and 1987, Square Enix is treating spoilers as seriously as it would for any other game.
In a post on the Dragon Quest website (via VGC), Square shared its guidelines for streaming and posting images and videos of the game. In the post (via machine translation), one of the guidelines says, "If you are streaming a scene that is closely related to the game's scenario, please voluntarily mark it as 'Contains spoilers' so as not to spoil the enjoyment for those who are about to play the game."
More notably, Square also requests that players "Please refrain from live streaming or posting videos or images of gameplay after the second credits roll of 'Dragon Quest 2' until November 29, 2025," which marks a month after the game releases.
While it may seem somewhat silly to have a spoiler warning for a game from the 80s, Square Enix has been hinting at "numerous" new scenarios" that connect the games to Dragon Quest 3 (which is a prequel to the original duo), and that there's a "new twist" that'll be a "really big surprise" for veteran fans. So presumably the point Square Enix specifically highlights is where this new content resides. Square will presumably remove offending videos, but the company has gone a bit further, noting that "If a user violates these guidelines, we may temporarily or permanently suspend that user from using the game."
That being said, these are common restrictions from certain publishers. But despite the warning, I have precisely no doubt that by this time tomorrow, after the game has launched, we will have YouTube videos with thumbnails showing the new content and saying what it is in the title.
Square Enix is remaking Dragon Quest 7 next as "nowadays, players are much more accustomed to games with darker stories," and the JRPG is "often said to have more dark and sorrowful episodes"
