Summary

  • Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate promises a darker, more serious tone and heavy decision-making elements, a departure from previous DQ games.
  • The creator believes that silent protagonists are out of place in modern games, suggesting a voiced protagonist for DQ 12 could enhance player immersion.
  • While some fans may be disappointed by a potential change, a voiced protagonist in DQ 12 could help players take the game's dark plot more seriously.

Even though it's been three years since Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate was formally announced, Square Enix has yet to share any substantial information about the game. The few details that have been revealed about the upcoming JRPG so far have come from the 50-second teaser trailer that was released in 2021 and the developer interviews that have followed thereafter. While it's still hard to picture what Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate will end up looking like, comments from series creator Yuji Horii have suggested that the game would be a fairly significant departure from the usual DQ formula.

Not only has he said that it'd have a darker, more serious tone than previous installments in the franchise, but he also stated that the game would feature a heavy emphasis on tough decision-making, hence The Flames of Fate subtitle. If Square Enix is indeed willing to shake up the series' formula that much with Dragon Quest 12, just like it did with FF16, then it may as well go all the way and change some of the core aspects from previous DQ entries that may need some adjustments in today's day and age. One example of a series staple that arguably needs an overhaul is the silent protagonist.

Dragon Quest 12 Should Break Series Tradition By Having a Voiced Protagonist

As anyone who has experience with the Dragon Quest franchise will already know, this famed JRPG series has a long history of making its protagonists silent. Although a handful of them may have some throwaway lines here and there in certain scenes, the amount of dialogue that DQ protagonists have is next to zero. This element of the franchise is especially notable in the series' latest mainline entry, Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age.

Dragon Quest 11's Hero Has Little Personality Compared to Other Silent Protags

In DQ11, gamers play as an unnamed young man simply called the Hero, also referred to as the Luminary. Since he doesn't speak, he barely has a personality of his own. While some may argue that DQ11's protagonist is intentionally meant to be a blank slate so that players can project their emotions onto him, the game never actually incorporates this into the gameplay itself.

The Hero only interacts with hand gestures, facial expressions, and grunts, all of which are pre-determined. In other words, players are never given the option to meld the Hero's personality as they wish. This isn't the case in Western RPGs like Baldur's Gate 3 or Starfield. Though these two games also have unvoiced protagonists, gamers are able to shape the personality of the characters they play as, thanks to the options they're given in dialogue trees.

A more apt comparison to Dragon Quest, though, might be the Persona games. Just like DQ, the player characters in most Persona games are mostly silent. However, gamers are occasionally given the choice to choose from unvoiced dialogue options that let them shape the protagonists' personalities to a minor extent. Even without proper dialogue, though, the main characters of the Persona games still have some charm of their own; they may not talk much, but they still exude a vibe that gives them some sense of personality. This often isn't the case with most Dragon Quest protagonists.

Dragon Quest's Creator Thinks Mute Protagonists Feel Out of Place in Modern Games

The sentiment that Dragon Quest's silent protagonists are out of fashion is even shared by Yuji Horii. In a recent interview with Denfaminicogamer, the series' own creator criticized the notion of silent protagonists in modern video games, stating that "as game graphics evolve and grow increasingly realistic, if you make a protagonist who just stands there, they will look like an idiot." Indeed, while silent protagonists didn't feel too out of place in the NES and SNES days, having a mute player character in a modern third-person video game is realism-breaking.

Given that Dragon Quest 12 is going to focus more on player choices than previous games, a voiced protagonist — or at least one with some Persona-style dialogue trees — seems like the next logical step for the franchise. Such a move may disappoint some long-time fans of the series who find the mute protagonists more appealing, but it might be for the best, as Dragon Quest 12's presumably dark plot could be taken more seriously this way.

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Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate Tag Page Cover Art

Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate
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JRPG
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Developer(s)
Square Enix
Publisher(s)
Square Enix
Engine
Unreal Engine 5
Franchise
Dragon Quest
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Dragon Quest 12: The Flames of Fate is an upcoming entry in the long-running Dragon Quest series. The game was announced on May 27th, 2021, which was the 35th anniversary of the iconic role-playing series. 

Genre(s)
JRPG