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Yesterday, Square Enix announced a new Dragon Quest game for iOS and Android, called "Dragon Quest RPG: The Cursed Tree and the Chosen Isle." The game is scheduled to be released in 2027; while there is no specific date yet, the game is playable enough to be soliciting applications for a closed beta test that will run in early December.

The game looks very much like it captures the style of newer mainline entries in the series, with character designs clearly inspired by Akira Toriyama's earlier work and the overall visual language of 3D Dragon Quest games. The game will be fully turn-based for combat, and appears from the trailer video to include base-building and character-recruiting elements, as well as a crafting system built into the base's merchants. Despite the story centering around a demonic blight applied to Yggdrasil, the World Tree present in most other Dragon Quest games, it does not appear that the story here will directly connect to any other Dragon Quest narratives, at least not in a way that's been announced yet.

The entirety of known information is contained in the announcement video and the official website; if you're interested in the beta test, the application is open now until November 23, and only 25,000 players maximum will be allowed in (but a lottery will determine the players if the applications come in higher than that number).

Source: Dragon Quest RPG (English)

As we previously announced back in May, Final Fantasy XI is expanding its free trial. Well, that day has finally arrived, and the expanded trial is now live!

There's been two major changes:

• Unlimited Playtime - the former free trial limited the player to just 14 Earth days of play. Now, the trial is unlimited in time - players can play to their heart's content and undertake ALL the free trial has to offer, much like its Final Fantasy XIV counterpart.
• Increased Level Cap - the former free trial level cap was level 50. Players will now be able to level to 75, which was the original level cap of the game.

The free trial does come with multiple limitations, which are detailed on the Square Enix Store page for the free trial. Most of these limitations are to prevent bad actors from using free trial accounts to participate in Real Money Trade (RMT) acitivites, which is firmly against the game's Terms of Service.

You may be wondering what you DO get access to, though! A partial list of activities you can undertake on the Free Trial has been posted in our forums.

In celebration of the expanded Free Trial, there is a Moogle Support Campaign happening for all players: upon login, players will receive a Mog Pell (Red), Mog Pell (Ochre), and a Trust Tome. 

The Mog Pells can be traded for a variety of useful items! For the Red Mog Pell, the official site recommends the Trizek Ring though your newswriter does NOT recommend that for Free Trial players, as such players cannot get Capacity Points on the trial. Instead, get one of Trust Ciphers listed, which will let you use Trust Magic to have NPCs fight alongside you in battle. Kupofried will hang out in your party, granting an experience bonus but does NOT fight; if you're looking for a Trust that is a damage dealer, I'd recommend Lion who has good attack speed, or Zeid who will Stun the enemy.

For the Ochre Mog Pell, it's recommended that you choose Shantotto II's Cipher. Shantotto II is a tremendously powerful Black Mage and is a boon to any party. Note that there are several different Shantotto ciphers, so do make sure you choose the correct one. If you already have Shantotto II, Amchuchu (a Rune Fencer tank) or King (a Red Mage who will buff the party) are good choices.

If you're joining the game for the first time, you'll find the Install Guide to be very helpful. BG-Wiki also has several other guides geared to the newer player.

Welcome to Vana'diel! We'll leave the light on for you.

Source: Final Fantasy XI Official Site

The new D23 Ultimate Fan Event taking place this weekend in Anaheim started big, with a ton of new info about upcoming movies and shows in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Frozen, Bluey, and... wait, I briefly forgot what website I was writing for.

Kingdom Hearts, yes, that's what we're here for at the moment. Now that we know that Kingdom Hearts IV is genuinely something that exists, Disney and Square Enix are certainly not going to stop giving us more information about it, and that started last night with a new trailer focusing mostly a new world from Pixar's Coco and Quadratum, the "real world." Sora gets a pretty slick-looking keyblade with a Dia de Muertos theme in there, too.

Separately, Disney also announced a new anime series based on Kingdom Hearts that will be aired on Disney Channel and Disney Plus (or, one would have to assume, local variants of each worldwide). There's no specific information about the characters or worlds to be involved yet, nor a release date, though Polygon reports that Tetsuya Nomura and other Squenix staff are involved in development at some level.

Source: Polygon

One of the major disappointments from Summer Game Fest, despite getting Revelation information, was the lack of Kingdom Hearts updates. Nintendo and Square Enix fixed that - a little - with this morning’s Nintendo Direct.

For the first time in years, we got to see some evidence that the game still exists, in the form of a new teaser shown late in the event.There’s not much detail to be had, still, and certainly no sniff of a release window; but at least the company confirmed that the game will be released to every major current platform, day-and-date for launch.

Elsewhere in the teaser, we get to see a number of snippets of cutscenes, mostly centered around battles with various Heartless, including one very massive one. Some of the combat appears to be live, as well, though none of these scenes had any interface layer shown on screen.

A quick cut through other characters is interspersed through the combat, confirming a few characters like Luxu, Luxord, and Strelitzia. A couple new characters appear as well, but what appears to be pretty thin so far is Disney representation; only Donald and Goofy show up in the new trailer at all, and only for the briefest glimpse. This tracks with the direction of the series and this particular game, though it might still be a bit disappointing for fans.

During this morning's Nintendo Direct, Square Enix announced a new HD-2D turn-based RPG being released on October 22nd, 2026. Titled Final Fantasy Resonance it's a remake - not a port - of Season 1 of the retired mobile game Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. The game will incorporate battle upgrades and other story content from later in Brave Exvius' lifespan.

For those who never played the mobile game: the premise is that Rain and Lasswell, who are Knights from Grandshelt, have been granted the power of Visions, which allows them to summon characters from across the Final Fantasy franchise to fight at their sides. These Visions level up independently of the main characters. Unlike Brave Exvius, though, where Visions could be used in place of the main characters, screenshots from Final Fantasy Resonance show the Visions alongside the main characters. In one such screenshot, we see Rain summoned Charlotte (FFBE), Lid summoned Aileen (FFBE), Fina summoned Shantotto (FFXI) and Jake summoned Firion (FFII).

Along with those mentioned above, the following Visions have been confirmed thus far:

• The Warrior of Light, Final Fantasy I
• Terra, Final Fantasy VI
• Cloud, Final Fantasy VII
• Zidane, Final Fantasy IX
• Shantotto, Final Fantasy XI
• Y'shtola, Final Fantasy XIV

The game will be coming to PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Nintendo Switch 1 and 2.It'll be interesting to see if future seasons of Brave Exvius will be released as sequels to Final Fantasy Resonance, as the mobile game featured four seasons and numerous story events.

Source: IGN

Yes, Final Fantasy XI is not only still around, but doing well these days: the game is currently celebrating its 24th Anniversary. For the occasion, Square Enix teamed up with an animation artist to create this short movie commemorating the game's adventures over the years:



Not only that, but the game will soon feature an expanded free trial. Currently, free trial users are limited to 14 Earth days of gameplay, but soon the limited timeframe will be a thing of the past. Players will be able to play for an unlimited time, up to level 75.

As one might expect, there are some restrictions: free trial players will not have access to any expansions, will not be able to trade items with other users, will not be able to access the Auction House, cannot initiate parties, and will be limited from using certain chat features.

It's unclear if the expanded free trial is active already, or if it will be rolled out in a future version update.

Also: the game's complete digital edition is currently on sale for the low price of $9.99. That sale goes through the early hours of Tuesday, June 9th, 2026.

Source: Rock Paper Shotgun, Final Fantasy XI Official Website