Every man and his pixelated dog seems to have heard of Minecraft, the brick-building, monster-slaying, item-crafting phenomenon. But sadly, not everyone is familiar with Dragon Quest, a pun-tastic series of Japanese role-playing games that have been going since the 80s. Story-driven adventures that see you saving the world as a band of disparate heroes, from exotic dancers to fat shop keepers to moustachioed knights, taking on punny enemies in traditional turn-based battles, Dragon Quest is one of our favourite serieses of all time - and its Minecraft-inspired spin-off, cunningly titled Dragon Quest Builders has long been on our radar. Now, we know when it'll finally be hitting our consoles - and have details of its "day one" edition.
To be honest, we'd run too if we encountered that beast on a dark and stormy night...
Now confirmed to be launching on both the PS4 and PS Vita on the 14th October, Dragon Quest Builders sees you set out on a quest to rebuild the world. Essentially, the menacing ruler of the monsters, the Dragonlord, has pretty much destroyed the human world of Alefgard, plunging their once-great cities into darkness, driving the land's inhabitants to the fringes of the world, and, somehow, robbing humanity of its ability to build in the process.
As a noble hero chosen by the Goddess, and therefore blessed with the powers of an architect, it falls to you to help the exiled humans rebuild their towns. By gathering materials, crafting tools and piecing the lost lands together block by block, you'll spend much of your time taking on increasingly extravagant building requests from the expectant citizens, building them towns and cities to be proud of (albeit towns made entirely out of boxes), before taking the fight to the Dragonlord himself to fix things once and for all.
Those keen to get started in saving the lost world of Alefgard may want to plump for the day one edition of the game, a special, limited-quantity version that comes with a few extras to bolster your Dragon Quest Heroes adventure. Each day one edition will come with a digital code to unlock three exclusive "recipes" that can be used to craft unique building materials to help you on your way, although these recipes can only be used in the free build Terra Incognita mode only, not the main story, unfortunately. It's not quite as fancy as the limited edition coming up for World of Final Fantasy, complete with a pop-up book, but it's better than nothing. The freebie recipes are as follows:
- Springtide Sprinkles Recipe - a magical item that can turn bog-standard, boring trees into festive Cherry Blossoms, and switch soil for comfier straw floor blocks
- Slimy Block Recipe - lets you craft blocks adorned with cute blue Slimes, the signature monster of the Dragon Quest series.
- Gold Block Recipe - build some seriously opulent buildings with blocks made of pure gold!
#swag
Dragon Quest Builders will be building it's way onto the Playstation 4 and PS Vita on the 14th October this year - although the handheld version will sadly be a digital only affair, which may or may not come with a day one edition. If you haven't watched it already, it's about slime you checked out the latest trailer below:
