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Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Dragon Quest series, with the first game releasing for Famicom on this day in 1986 (in Japan, of course - it didn't come to the west until three years later). Squenix had teased an announcement video for several days beforehand, and it was assumed that like in most similar videos, there would be some mention of special events and progress on the newest mainline game, first announced five years ago.

We got something slightly different. That newest mainline game, "The Flames of Fate," is no longer a thing, and the twelfth game has apparently been restarted from scratch and is now subtitled "Beyond Dreams." It's unclear when this restart happened, or how much longer it will take for the revamped game to be released, though from the brief clips shown, it will still certainly look like one would expect a current-gen Dragon Quest game to be. One thing that is made very clear is that Yuji Horii is no longer interested in the "darker" storyline for this game, as the official translation specifically reflects him saying that the world of the new version reflects a "bright and exciting future."

One more announcement came at the end of the video - a new game in the Dragon Quest Monsters series. This one is subtitled "The Withered World," but beyond that and the platforms for which it will release (all of the usual ones), there's no detail to be had yet, including a potential release window. The entire announcement video is nine minutes long, with the first few dedicated to a quick recap of prior games, and you can watch it just below.

Source: Dragon Quest Official YouTube

Yes, Final Fantasy XI is not only still around, but doing well these days: the game is currently celebrating its 24th Anniversary. For the occasion, Square Enix teamed up with an animation artist to create this short movie commemorating the game's adventures over the years:



Not only that, but the game will soon feature an expanded free trial. Currently, free trial users are limited to 14 Earth days of gameplay, but soon the limited timeframe will be a thing of the past. Players will be able to play for an unlimited time, up to level 75.

As one might expect, there are some restrictions: free trial players will not have access to any expansions, will not be able to trade items with other users, will not be able to access the Auction House, cannot initiate parties, and will be limited from using certain chat features.

It's unclear if the expanded free trial is active already, or if it will be rolled out in a future version update.

Also: the game's complete digital edition is currently on sale for the low price of $9.99. That sale goes through the early hours of Tuesday, June 9th, 2026.

Source: Rock Paper Shotgun, Final Fantasy XI Official Website

Earlier today, Square Enix published a new website to announce a contest for Japanese indie game developers to win a share of a billion yen (over 6.25 million USD) and a publishing partnership with Squenix over the next year.

The contest is for unaffiliated game developers who are working on unreleased games; the developers can be individuals or groups/companies, but they must be located in Japan. There appear to be no restrictions on what genre or style the games can be, but they should be targeted to the PC or mobile markets. It also appears that AI usage may be acceptable, within guidelines that the company has yet to publish. There will be fifteen winners, all of whom will get support from Squenix in terms of publishing and marketing the game, sales royalties, and a lump prize payment starting at 30 million yen and going up to 300 million for the grand prize winner.

Developers can start submitting their proposals in December and through next March. Starting from there, Squenix will evaluate the entries based on the developers' written descriptions and short YouTube videos, with the best entries moving on to be evaluated based on actual gameplay and finally interviews. The winners will be announced in June 2027.

The rules of this contest appear to be quite wide open, so there's no telling what sorts of games might come out of this or whether any may someday be available outside of Japan; maybe we'll see the result in a little over a year's time.



Source: Square Enix Game Contest 2026