 Welcome back everyone. So a question I've gotten more often recently is, when is Dragon Quest Monsters returning? Now if you don't know, Dragon Quest Monsters is a spin-off of the Dragon Quest series where you tame and battle a team of monsters against each other. They are pretty similar to Pokemon, though the mechanic really started in Dragon Quest 5 years earlier. There has been several different Dragon Quest Monster series, the original for the Game Boy and in recent years the Dragon Quest Monsters Joker series. However, some people don't realize this but there's actually a new Dragon Quest Monsters game in development and I'm not surprised people don't know because Square Enix hasn't talked about it at all since it got announced. On the 20th anniversary of the Dragon Quest Monster series a few years back, they revealed Akira Toriyama's character illustrations for the new DQM in development featuring the two protagonists who are not named. But upon looking at them, it's obvious that these are younger versions of Eric and Mia from Dragon Quest XI, meaning that the game will likely take place in Dragon Quest XI's universe. This is not something new to the DQM series. The first Dragon Quest Monsters was about Terry and Millie when they were kids and the second game was about the sibling duo of Tara and Kobe, so this is very similar to early games in the series. Now as far as what we know, we don't really know much. They literally just showed off the image and haven't really said much at all about the game since. It's been nearly two years since we last heard about it. However, early this year we got one update and it isn't good news. In January's issue of VJump, Taiichi Inuzaka, the producer for Dragon Quest Monsters Joker was interviewed. In the interview he was asked about the new game. His response was, for the new Dragon Quest Monsters game, while I do want to say something cheerful, it really doesn't feel like it's going that way. I want to work hard to make something happen soon, but it feels like the more effort I put into it, the more fruitless they become. Additionally, he said, it's kind of like taking three steps forward and then two steps back. So what does this mean? It could mean a lot of things, but we might not be seeing the game releasing anytime soon. It's possible that the team is rethinking the game entirely and scrapping original concepts or they may be having some sort of development issues. Honestly, who knows what might happen with the game at this point. I am still being hopeful that they'll get a product together soon because I have honestly missed DQM. We've gone without a new one, especially in the West for a long time, and with people's frustrations over a certain other monster-taming RPG that's out, this could be a great opportunity for DQM to develop a brand new dedicated fanbase. Until we hear more, the project doesn't seem super optimistic. What do you want to see in the next Dragon Quest Monsters? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you next time.