Dragon Quest series creator Yuji Horii entertains possibility of making a brand-new adventure game
In a recent interview with The Sankei News, Dragon Quest series creator Yuji Horii talked about the adventure game genre and how he imagines it will evolve with recent advancements in technology and AI. The creator even discussed the possibility of making a brand-new adventure game in the future.
To put things into context, the conversation with Horii comes three days before the release of the remake of The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case: The Okhostsk Disappearance. The original game, designed by Horii in 1984, is a murder mystery adventure in which the player progresses by selecting commands from a menu to control the protagonist (such as “go to the crime scene”).
This game was preceded by Horii’s The Portopia Serial Murder Case from 1983, which is considered to have had a formative influence on the VN and adventure game genre, especially in Japan. Unlike The Hokkaido Serial Murder Case, this game had players progress using a verb-noun parser, i.e. by having players type in their own commands with a keyboard.
Although the game was revolutionary for its time, Horii recalled seeing players struggle to progress in the game simply because they could not find the right wording, i.e. a wording that the system could recognize as a command. As a result, in his subsequent game, he introduced a command selection system in favor of the open command input system. The creator had initially feared that this “multiple choice” approach would make things too easy, but ended up being pleasantly surprised with its success. The system went on to be adopted in Dragon Quest and had a big influence on games in general.
However, Horii thinks that the way adventure games are made is about to make a U-turn. When asked about the future of the genre, the creator comments, “At the time, I made a transition from input-based to selection-based commands. However, with the recent advancement of technology, the opposite is happening. Technology is now able to distinguish words spoken in real life, which means that players don’t have to search for words that the computer can recognize. I think this will bring about adventure games where the player can converse with AI. It would be fun to investigate a murder case while interacting with AI.”
Moreover, when asked about whether he has any plans to make a new adventure game himself, Horii says “there could be various possibilities in the future.” He also noted that a potential new game from him would be made from scratch, as opposed to revisiting his past ideas. Perhaps we can expect a high-tech voice-controlled adventure game from Horii somewhere down the line, especially as he currently has no plans to retire.
