RPGs like Dragon Quest 11 and Nier: Automata are heavily outsourced, Square Enix producer says, with surprisingly few devs in-house

Dragon Quest and Nier games might have more in common than you'd think, as one Square Enix producer discusses that both series rely a lot on outsourced developers.

Speaking at BitSummit Punch last month (spotted and translated by Genki_JPN on Twitter), Yosuke Saito – who's credited as a producer on Nier, Nier: Automata, the Replicant remaster, and Dragon Quest 11: Echoes of an Elusive Age, amongst many others – notes that the two RPG series are created in similar ways, with neither being made entirely with in-house developers.

In Nier: Automata's case, of course, while Square Enix was the publisher, PlatinumGames was the developer, alongside direction from series creator Yoko Taro, and music created by Keiichi Okabe – a Namco veteran who's now the CEO of Monaca, a music production studio.

Similarly, Saito says, most Dragon Quest games up to now have also featured outsourced development. For example, between a third and a half of Dragon Quest 11 was developed in-house at Square Enix, with the rest being outsourced, he reveals. Looking at its credits (thanks, MobyGames), you can see plenty of other companies mentioned, such as Orca and ILCA (the latter of which since developed Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl).

Genki notes that Enix was described as a team of producers, with some script writers, who never had an in-house dev team. The company, alongside Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii, would seek out outsourcing teams for every game.

Presumably, we can still expect this to apply to Dragon Quest 12: Beyond Dreams, too. Back when the next RPG was still going to be called The Flames of Fate, it was confirmed that Orca and HEXADRIVE would be co-developing it alongside Square Enix (thanks, Gematsu), but the latest news on the game revealed "a reshuffle of the team and a restart of development," so it's not clear if this could have changed. Even so, given the series' history, I'd be very surprised if Square Enix didn't outsource any devs for it.

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