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Dragon Quest Walk is Square Enix's answer to Pokemon Go

A Dragon Quest iOS and Android game hits Japan in 2019.

Daniel Van Boom Senior Writer
Daniel Van Boom is an award-winning Senior Writer based in Sydney, Australia. Daniel Van Boom covers cryptocurrency, NFTs, culture and global issues. When not writing, Daniel Van Boom practices Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, reads as much as he can, and speaks about himself in the third person.
Expertise Cryptocurrency, Culture, International News
Daniel Van Boom
2 min read
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Dragon Quest Walk.

Square Enix

Last week Nintendo announced Pokemon Sleep , reasoning that it could gamify sleeping like Pokemon Go gamified walking. But it looks like Square Enix thinks walking still has some, uh, mileage.

The company on Sunday announced Dragon Quest Walk, an  iOS and Android addition to the iconic JRPG series. The reveal trailer showed little gameplay, but, with its depictions of 3D Dragon Quest monsters interacting with real-life humans, hinted at augmented reality (AR) functionality.

Some of the little gameplay we did see looked an awful lot like Pokemon Go, seeming to involve a similar map-based interface. However, it does appear that Dragon Quest's famous turn-based combat is present here.

Dragon Quest Walk will be released in Japan this year. No worldwide release window was given. You can see the trailer below. 

If you're hungry for another Pokemon Go-like experience, Dragon Quest Walk won't be your only option. Niantic, the developer behind Pokemon Go, is developing Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. It's slated for release by the end of the year.

The Pokemon Company meanwhile, is focusing on our shut-eye. Tsunekazu Ishihara, CEO of the Pokemon Company, said last Tuesday that Pokemon Sleep will "turn sleeping into entertainment." Pokemon Sleep is set for release in 2020 and will work with a device Nintendo is calling the Pokemon Go Plus Plus, a peripheral that will help track your sleep and monitor sleep patterns. 

Along with Pokemon Sleep, The Pokemon Company also unveiled a follow-up to Pokemon: Detective Pikachu. It's coming to Nintendo Switch and a cloud-based service called Pokemon Home that links your phone and Switch so you can grab your Pokemon and chuck them all together.  

Meanwhile, the last we saw of Dragon Quest was Echoes of an Elusive Age, the 11th main game in the franchise. It was originally released in Japan on the Nintendo Switch and 3DS in 2017, with a worldwide release for the PlayStation 4 last September. 

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