The latest mobile phone AR game to hit the scene in Japan has stormed out of the gates, as Dragon Quest Walk has already accrued over five million downloads during its first week of release.
Dragon Quest Walk is similar to Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, as the player has to manually walk to locations in real life and use their phone to play the game. The player creates their own character in Dragon Quest Walk and uses them to fight monsters and complete quests, in a similar manner to the mainline Dragon Quest series.
The Dragon Quest series has always been incredibly popular in Japan and it shows: according to Twinfinite, Dragon Quest Walk has already been downloaded over five million times during its first week of release.
But will this initial positive reaction will lead to an international release for the game? The AR mobile game market is slowly becoming more saturated and Pokémon Go has kept a tight grip as the market leader since its release. The Dragon Quest franchise is considered to be a niche series outside of Japan, but Square Enix is trying to change that with a glut of new releases on the Nintendo Switch. Dragon Quest, Dragon Quest II: Luminaries of the Legendary Line, Dragon Quest III: Seeds of Salvation, and Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age - Definitive Edition are all due to be released in the West later this month. The Dragon Quest series has also received a promotional bump with the addition of the Hero to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
The first few months of Dragon Quest Walk's performance will be key to an international release. The initial install base of the game is smaller than that of some Nintendo mobile games that were released during the same period of time, so it's possible that Square Enix will bide its time and see if the game can maintain its fanbase before taking the plunge on an international release.
Dragon Quest Walk is available to download now for Android and iOS devices in Japan. There is currently no word on an international release date.
Source: Twinfinite