Today, SQUARE ENIX announced the upcoming role-playing game DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS: The Dark Prince is now available for digital pre-orders and pre-purchase exclusively for Nintendo Switch via the Square Enix official store and at retail. Players who pre-order or pre-purchase the game will also receive the Head Start Set which includes several exclusive items. Additionally, the team at Square Enix also revealed more details on the game’s new battle and monster recruitment system available to players once the game officially launches worldwide on December 1, 2023.

DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS: The Dark Prince is the latest installment in the DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS series where players immerse in the epic story of the dark prince Psaro, a monster wrangler, and construct a team of monsters to battle against your enemies as you progress through the adventure to becoming the Master of Monsterkind.

In DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS: The Dark Prince, Nintendo Switch players and DRAGON QUEST fans worldwide will be able to:

• Scout Monsters and Send Them into Battle: Control up to eight team members, with up to four in your main party and four more in your reserves.
  • Issue precise orders to each individual monster during battle, or set general tactics, such as ‘Show No Mercy’ or ‘Focus on Healing’ and leave it to your monsters to decide the specifics.
  • Your monsters can enter into a frenzied state out of sheer desperation and inflict greater damage and gain additional opportunities to act if victory seems like a distant dream.
• Grow Your Roster Of Monsters: There are many ways to grow your roster of monsters.
  • After winning a battle, an enemy monster may ask to join your team afterwards.
  • Use the ‘Show of Force’ skill and try persuading strong-looking enemies to join your team
  • Meet other wranglers on your journey who are willing to combine their monsters with yours to create a brand-new creature — one they’ll even let you keep!
  • Use items, such as meat-based goodies and other treats, to increase the likelihood of recruiting a monster or to improve the persuasiveness of your ‘Show of Force’.
• Use the Power of Synthesis to Make New Monsters: Combine two parent monsters to make a new one.
  • The synthesis system has been overhauled for DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS: The Dark Prince, and now features more intuitive combinations for returning gamers and newcomers to discover.
• Unlock New Monster Talents: There are three broad categories of talent, and each one contains a mix of skills, magic spells, attribute boosters and more. Some provide life-saving healing spells, while others can turn a monster into an attacking powerhouse or a sponge for damage. A selection of talents are even named after some very familiar monsters…
  • Level up Monsters’ Talents: Unlock new sets of spells and abilities gradually by assigning talent points earned through battle experience and/or other means.
  • Inherit Talents through Synthesizing: When a child monster is synthesized, it comes with its own innate talent, but can also inherit skills from its parent. Understanding this is the ultimate key to creating powerful monsters. There are numerous talents to be acquired.
• Manage Your Team of Monsters’ Sizes and Ranks: Monsters come in two different sizes: small or large.
  • Sizes:
    • Small monsters take up one slot in your team, while large monsters require two slots. Set up a party of four small monsters, or two large ones, or two small and one large.
    • Large monsters also have higher attributes than their small counterparts and act multiple times per round during battle.
  • Ranks:
    • Each monster is assigned one of nine ranks based on its type: G, F, E, D, C, B, A, S or X, from lowest to highest.
    • Rank S monsters hold many familiar antagonists from the series, while the most fiendishly powerful monsters exclusively occupy Rank X.
• Test Your Mettle in the Battle Arenas of Two Worlds!
  • As Psaro’s adventure takes shape, two battle areas, where you can test your monsters’ might, will become available—the Endor Colosseum in the human world of Terrestria, and the Maulosseum in the monster realm of Nadiria.
  • Overcome every expert monster wrangler in each arena on Psaro’s quest to raise an army capable of toppling the Master of Monsterkind himself!
• Familiar Faces from DQXI and New Friends to Find
  • DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS: The Dark Prince features over 500 monsters to befriend, including:
    • Jasper Unbound and Krystalinda from DRAGON QUEST XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age
    • Greater Platypunk and brand-new monsters like Gander.
    • And more to uncover and synthesize….

DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS: The Dark Prince is now available for digital pre-orders and pre-purchase exclusively for Nintendo Switch via the Square Enix official store and at retail. Players who pre-order or pre-purchase the game will also receive the Head Start Set which includes:

• Stardust Earrings x1
• Scholar’s Specs x1
• Bonus Ball x5