After a tempestuous year for Square Enix, another of its mobile games is approaching end of service. This time around it’s Dragon Quest Monsters: Super Light on the verge of its final fate, with the end in sight and doom slated for January 31 2024.
It marks an important moment for the Dragon Quest franchise, with Super Light being its longest-running mobile entry and totting up more than 1,600 unique monsters in its lifetime. After all, one week before going offline, on January 23, Super Light will celebrate an impressive 10 years of operation - a major milestone, marred only by the news of its closure.
Even so, Square Enix is hoping to end things on a joyful note. Instead of calling this a shuttering or end of service, Square sees Super Light as reaching "service completion". A mission completed/thanks for all the good times, if you will.
New content will conclude and players won’t be able to access online aspects of the game, but those already playing can continue offline, if they so choose.
A decade-long saga
Dragon Quest Monsters: Super Light was developed by Cygames and published by Square Enix. It first launched on 24 January 2014 in Japan as a celebration of the Dragon Quest franchise - featuring characters from throughout the series’ history, from its video games to manga and anime.
An English version was released by Garena for a limited time but shut down way back in 2016, leaving Super Light (for the most part) an Asia exclusive; this is true of many Square Enix mobile games, with a growing number shutting down in recent years.
"First of all, please watch the story conclude on October 31. We hope you will play until the end to find out how the long adventure of the main characters, Majouji, Warubou, and Watabou will turn out," said Super Light producer Issei Ota.
"We came to the conclusion that the 10-year milestone was the appropriate timing to mark the end of our adventure… I want to deliver fun and surprising measures that can be called a conclusion to all the players who love the story of DQMSL."
It may be almost over for Super Light, but perhaps this will give Square Enix more room to focus on its latest mobile endeavour.
