Dragon Quest VII Reimagined

Main series games
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined
Developer(s)	Hexadrive Co., Ltd
Publisher(s)	Square Enix
Designer(s)	Yuji Horii
Series	Dragon Quest
Platform(s)	Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam
Release date(s)	Nintendo Switch; INT Febuary 5, 2026; PlayStation 5; INT Febuary 5, 2026; Xbox Series X/S; INT Febuary 5, 2026; Steam; INT Febuary 5, 2026;
Genre(s)	Console role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player

Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is the second remake of Dragon Quest VII, announced on September 12th 2025. Unlike the Nintendo 3DS remake released in 2013 that implemented modest balance adjustments to the original, Reimagined is a total reworking of the adventure that changes several elements to provide a different experience. Certain aspects that were added in the Nintendo 3DS remake have been retained, such as Ruff riding on the back of his adoptive mother and the unnamed Faerie guide dwelling in the Shrine of Mysteries, newly dubbed The Caretaker.

New features

Presentation changes

Characters are displayed in a handcrafted artstyle and the environments are presented as dioramas, not unlike Square-Enix's Fantasian

Scenario changes

The game is considerably more non-linear than before, allowing players to tackle the problems of the past in nearly any order provided the requisite tablet fragments have been found
Fragment locations have been changed
New scenarios that elaborate on the Hero and Maribel's childhood have been added
The El Ciclo, Gröndal, & Providence scenarios have been removed
A battle arena has been added, with one section including the three archfiends from the Erdrick Trilogy

Battle changes

All five heroes can now travel together, with the fifth being a backup character to be swapped in at will during battle
Just like the 3DS remake, random encounters have been replaced with on-screen monsters
Weakling monsters are instantly defeated upon making contact with the player, similar to Nintendo's EarthBound
Vocation advancement is no longer based on the number of battles fought while in a given profession, instead using a secondary experience point system
New exclusive starter vocations have been added for every character to increase their ability repertoire in the early game before accessing Alltrades Abbey

For example Ruff starts in the "wolf child" (オオカミ少年) vocation

Characters can now take up two vocations simultaneously in a featured dubbed moonlighting
All vocations now feature exclusive abilities that trigger when a character is thoroughly worked up in battle and selects the Let Loose command, ranging from powerful attacks to life-saving buffs
Monster vocations have been removed and monster hearts have become a new type of accessory to be equipped to characters, similar to the Monster Battle Road badges in Dragon Quest X and medals in Dragon Quest Treasures.
The Monster Master vocation replaces the Monster Masher vocation
New spells and skills have been added, such as the Frizz Cracker and Moreheal spells, and fourth-tier attack spells such as Kaswooshle
Certain abilities have had their MP cost rebalanced, such as Maelstrom taking 16 MP instead of 12
The Charm, Deftness, Magical Mending, and Magical Might stats have been added

As a result the Style and Wisdom stats have been removed

Shields have a chance to block 100% of a physical attack's damage as in Dragon Quest IX, Dragon Quest X, and Dragon Quest XI

Miscellaneous changes

Angel statues that allow characters to change vocations have placed in rooms before boss battles

Development

In a brief video published on the day of the game's announcement, producer Takeshi Ichikawa states that the subtitled of "Reimagined" was chosen as the game changed so much of the original's content. Real-life figurines were scanned to create the in-game models for the characters and monsters, with the developers dubbing this approach the "diorama style". The narrative has been reworked extensively, with new scenarios being added while others were removed to improve the original game's infamous pacing. Yuji Horii notes that searching for fragments is much easier than before.