Dragon Quest Builders is an open world sand box game set in the world of the first Dragon Quest game. The game takes place in a world where the protagonist of the original game chose the native ending for the game where they join forces with the evil Dragonlord. In the original game the Dragonlord promises the player half of the world but as it is revealed in the beginning cut scene of this game, the Dragonlord betrays the protagonist. The world is overrun by monsters and left in ruin and this is where the sort begins for the protagonist of this game.
The game begins with the protagonist waking up in a hole. The protagonist is barely alive and left for dead. What follows is a tutorial of the game’s most basic mechanics. You collect materials such as white lilies, which are the first items you collect. The materials can be brought to a tree stump in order to craft a variety of items, in the tutorial for the game the first item the player must construct is healing cream in order to stave off death. After this the basic concept of breaking apart materials and being able to distribute them is introduced, making the player build a staircase out of dirt in order to escape the ditch they seemed to have fallen into. The player will then go on to explore the world as well as face their first enemies, which are of course blue slime.
Dragon Quest Builders is visually quite stunning, its open fields and Akira Toriyama designed characters give the world life and personality. Even for those who are not familiar with the Dragon Quest, the world is distinctly vibrant and the characters designed in ways that make them distinctive and not like run of the mill npcs or enemies found in open world games.
The game has drawn many comparisons to the incredibly popular Minecraft, and while it does share some elements it does have its distinctions. While Minecraft recently introduced a “story mode” version of the game, the heart of that game was endless wandering and player freedom to do what they pleased. Dragon Quest Builders gives the player an objective, which is to clear the world of monsters and slowly rebuild the world.
Dragon Quest Builders will be released October 11th in North America.