Near the end of 2019, Square Enix revealed that 2018’s Dragon Quest XI: Echoes Of An Elusive Age managed to sell more than 5.5 million copies worldwide. That’s impressive for a niche and traditional turn-based JRPG game. Now Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii has provided an update on the next instalment of the long-running franchise.

In his New Year message, Horii confirmed that Dragon Quest XII has been in development since 2019 and that a whole lot of Dragon Quest content is yet to come in the near future. However, it will still be a while before we’ll see the release of Dragon Quest XII.

Here is Yuji Horii’s New Year message in full (via Gematsu):

Happy New Year. In addition to [what I said in the New Year’s card] below, there are some things I still cannot say, but as for [Dragon Quest] XII, it is still a little while ahead.

However, there may be things we can release before that. Please give me your support again this year.

Happy New Year. Last year, we released the Dragon Quest movie Dragon Quest: Your Story, as well as the Switch version of Dragon Quest XI.

We also released Dragon Quest Walk for smartphones, and announced anime and game adaptions for Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai.

And now, 33 years after the first game, I am extremely happy to be able to challenge new things such as the production of [Dragon Quest] XII.

To all the fans who have supported Dragon Quest thus far, as well as the many staff who have sustained it, thank you so much.

While I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep this up, I want to work as hard as I can for a little while longer.

May this year be a wonderful one for everyone. Please give me your support again this year.

In the meantime, head on over here for my review of Dragon Quest XI: Echoes Of An Elusive Age.