Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince will be scouting on the Switch this year

Square Enix has announced that the Dragon Quest Monsters franchise is making a comeback on the Switch with Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. The sub-series of the famous JRPG franchise based around Pokémon-style monster collecting has not seen a release outside of Japan since 2010’s Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 back on the Nintendo DS.

The reveal trailer of Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince shows the game’s protagonist being cursed by the titular Dark Prince to be unable to directly harm monsters. Fortunately, they find another way to combat the monster outbreak threatening the community by becoming a monster wrangler, and forming a team of loyal monsters to fight the wild monsters in their stead. The protagonist from Dragon Quest IV also briefly shows up at the end of the trailer, suggesting we might see more call-backs to earlier games in the Dragon Quest series.

The player can expect plenty of iconic monsters from the series past, from various varieties of Slimes, to Drackies to Khalamari Kids. Also featured is the series’ trademark monster fusion feature, allowing players to combine two adequately levelled monsters into a new, more powerful one. Through a combination of scouting monsters in the wild and monster fusion, you can build up the squad of your dreams.

Fortunately, the game’s full release isn’t too far off the horizon. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince will be heading to Nintendo Switch later this year on the 1 December 2023.