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If you’re a Dragon Quest fan, and you still haven’t heard of “Chatty Slimey,” don’t worry. There’s a perfectly good explanation for that: Dragon Quest 10, the franchise’s one and only MMORPG, has never been localized and remains a Japan-only title 14 years after launch. It is, at this point, safe to say it’s never coming.
Chatty Slimey is an AI chatbot companion coming soon to the long-running MMO. It’s cute, it’s friendly, and Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii seems seriously bullish on its importance within the gaming industry. Setting aside whether fans are even OK with its inclusion as a “personal pal” in DQ10, the rising fear here is that Dragon Quest 12—announced five years ago with radio silence ever since—will see an aggressive AI NPC push as well. Suffice it to say, most of us aren’t keen.
Chatty Slimey exists “thanks” to a partnership between Square Enix and Google. (There’s something a touch ironic about a United States mega-company teaming up for a big game that will never see the light of day here, but I suppose it happens all the time.) Horii-san popped up at Google Cloud Next 2026 late last month, where he shared his thoughts on AI companions and similar fare. As spotted by Automaton:
“When I first created Dragon Quest, I wanted the townspeople dialogue to sound as much like real human speech as possible. Now, AI can actually respond, so I think we can make them feel even more human. However, simply replacing townspeople with AI wouldn’t be fun.”
So, I don’t know about you, but I’m at least thankful that Horii doesn’t think that replacing townspeople with AI would be fun. But this still leaves the door open for something drastic like a fully chatbot-based main party member. Or, gods forbid, a full party of them. Now, here’s where my skin kind of crawled—but that’s just me, and maybe you feel differently:
“With regular AI, people can feel embarrassed about treating it like a friend, but if it’s a game character, the barrier is lower, and people may find it easier to talk to about various topics.”
He goes harder and harder on this one:
“I think it’s wonderful that [Slimey] can also listen to people’s concerns with empathy and even talk about things unrelated to the game itself. I’d like to explore ways for AI characters to accompany players as supporting companions while they play, which could then expand into other series too. AI characters could become an entry point that teaches beginners how to play, and even after leaving the game, players might come to consider them as friends.”
If it’s just beginner tool fare, I’m not going to pull the plug on my plans to purchase Dragon Quest 12. I can live with it. But many feel otherwise. Just check out the reactions in this ResetEra thread. “Welp, maybe I don’t have interest in DQ12 after all,” the first comment proclaims. Noted Era member PlanetSmasher added, “…an AI literally can’t be your friend, Horii. This is unhealthy as fuck.” Further comments include certain sentiments not fit for publication, but one recurring reaction involves the decision not to shell out for the next big mainline Dragon Quest if this stuff comes to pass in it.
For now, there’s no reason to assume that it will. But Yuji Horii is very keen on all of this, and if that does weave its way into ‘The Flames of Fate,’ we’re going to have an issue. Well, all of us who dislike this stuff. I suppose the other side of the debate will have a field day with a bunch of soulless party members who will praise them to high heaven for no particular reason while “evolving” their backgrounds in real-time, or… something.
It’s unclear what exactly is going on, but the tab is no longer present.
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