Dragon Quest Heroes isn't straying too far from its RPG roots

If you're an RPG fan and aren't interested in a Dragon Quest Warriors game, don't write it off just yet.

In an interview with finaland at Japan Expo, series producers Ryota Aomi and Kenichi Osugawara - producer at Koei Tecmo - confirmed that Dragon Quest Heroes will be less like a Warriors game and more of an ARPG.

When asked about the difference between Dragon Quest Heroes and other Warriors (musou) games, Osugawara said, "Well, I think the biggest differences between DQ Heroes and the Musou series is that in Musou all the action is structured, we’re fighting in a battlefield and it’s all about how you win that one fight, as the battle series is all about combat, where DQ Heroes is an Action RPG, it’s pretty much more like an RPG game in some ways, but you got characters, you got individual levels, they do things depending on the story of the game."

"So depending on the story we’ll have different objectives. They got to do different things and motivations, since the construction is based much more on what you do for the story rather than how you just win one battle, so the whole idea is there are differences in just how it’s constructed."

Ryota Aomi added, "What we tried to do in DQ Heroes, we didn’t make it as a Musou game as the Dynasty Warriors games, it’s pretty much like a DQ game instead, it’s kinda about avoid making an action game, so it does not become a Musou game."

Talking about how the idea came about, Aomi recalled discussing new ideas for the series at E3 a decade ago. The concept must have been marinating since then, as the next time it popped up was seven years later.

"...They discussed various ideas over time, and about 3 years ago, they came to the proposal asking « could they make a Dragon Quest action game ? », while making it as a Dragon Quest game rather than a Musou game. So that’s how the series came about."

Dragon Quest Heroes has been confirmed for an October 16 European release date for PS4.