Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake will have a performance mode for PS5 and three difficulty settings
Three years after its initial announcement, Square Enix revealed that Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake (Dragon Quest 3 hereafter) will be releasing on November 14 this year. While staying faithful to the original concept and worldview, the remake will adapt Dragon Quest 3 for modern platforms and make some meaningful changes in terms of performance and gameplay.
Square Enix’s Team Asano and Artdink are developing Dragon Quest 3 in the HD-2D style of Octopath Traveller and Triangle Strategy, which blends 2D pixel art characters and objects with dynamic 3D backgrounds and modern lighting. The story will mostly follow the original but include some revisions, supervised by series’ creator Yuji Horii.
According to a preview report by Game*Spark, Dragon Quest 3 will have a Graphics Mode and a Performance Mode on PS5, the latter of which will prioritize frame rate. The game will also introduce three difficulty settings – Dracky Quest Mode, Dragon Quest Mode and Draconian Quest Mode. In the easy mode, the player will deal increased damage and some bosses will not automatically recover HP. Conversely, in the hard mode, all bosses will have increased HP and reward less XP and gold. Players will be able to save the game at any point, and an auto-save function will be added too.
The Dragon Quest 3 remake will introduce many newer features that came with Dragon Quest 6, such as Recall – the ability to memorize NPC dialogues, destination and quest guides and speed adjustments for battle and movement.
Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake is scheduled to launch on November 14 for the PC (Microsoft Store), Nintendo Switch, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. The Steam version will be released on November 15.