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Minecraft-like Dragon Quest Builders is launching in October

Minecraft-like Dragon Quest Builders is launching in October

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No longer just for Japan

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Dragon Quest Builders — a game that mashes up the sandbox building elements of Minecraft with the story and world of Dragon Quest — is coming to North America.

Today Square Enix announced that the game, which first launched in Japan in January, will be releasing in the West in October, coming to both the PlayStation 4 and PS Vita (though the handheld version will only be available digitally). The news comes on the same day that the long-running fantasy RPG series marks its 30th anniversary; the original Dragon Quest launched on the Famicom this day in 1986.

Dragon Quest Builders

Builders is a departure for the series, swapping turn-based combat for world building. Much like in Minecraft, you'll be using a variety of tools to gather resources and build structures. It even looks like Minecraft, with a similar blocky art style. There's a story that has you rebuilding a fallen kingdom, and it's actually an alternate take on the events of the original game. Here's the set-up:

In this story the realm has been destroyed because the Hero (from DQ1) who was supposed to save the world by defeating the evil Dragonlord, actually got tempted into accepting a sham deal with him. This plunges the land into darkness and despair and the few survivors scattered around the world no longer understand the concept of creativity and live through scavenging what remains among ruins.

While the gameplay will be different, you can expect to see lots of DQ mainstays, from characters to items to monsters. Yes, there will be plenty of cute blue slimes.