Orca, a Japanese development studio that worked on several different games in the past, is co-developing Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate, currently recruiting Unreal Engine 5 developers as well.
As reported by Gematsu, a new listing on the developer's website confirms it is indeed working on the next entry in the JRPG series by Square Enix. This isn't particularly surprising, as Orca also worked on Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age and Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition.
Specifically, Orca is looking for a character artist, cinematic artist, technical artist, user interface artist, rendering programmer, animator, environment artist, rigging artist, level designer, facial animator, effects artist, lighting artist, planner.
Very little is currently known about Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate as of now. Series creator Yuji Horii confirmed that the series' command battle system will be overhauled and that the game's story is already complete.
The latest entry in the series is the already mentioned Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition, which introduces plenty of welcome quality of life improvements and new content, as highlighted by Kai in his review.
Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition is certainly the best way to play the Luminary's tale if you haven't picked it up before, with the numerous quality of life changes and the return of the 3DS' 2D adventure mode both great bits of refreshing the existing content. However, I couldn't find a reason to pick up the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One versions if you already picked up the same Definitive Edition last year on Nintendo Switch (unless you want to get the adventure for free on Xbox Game Pass). There's no bit of new content between the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 versions that might convince a player that waiting for this release was worth the wait.
Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate is currently in development for yet to be announced systems. We will keep you updated on the game as soon as more come in on it, so stay tuned for all the latest news.
