Dragon Quest Walk: How Japan's Favourite RPG Got Millions Walking

On a weekday morning in Tokyo, it is easy to spot them: commuters walking a little slower than everyone else, glancing at a map on their phones where a blue, smiling blob is waiting at the next corner. That blob is a Slime, the most famous monster in Japanese gaming, and the game is Dragon Quest Walk.

Released in Japan on 12 September 2019 for iOS and Android, Dragon Quest Walk is a free-to-play, location-based RPG made by Colopl and published by Square Enix. It took the formula Pokémon GO made famous in 2016, walk in the real world to find things in the game, and wrapped it in the most beloved RPG series in Japan. It drew more than 5 million downloads in its first week, and analytics estimates put its 2019 revenue at about $201 million, second only to Pokémon GO among location-based games that year.

A Dragon Quest you play with your feet

In Dragon Quest Walk, your character's position on the map is your own. Quests send you to real-world destinations; when you get there, story scenes and battles unlock. Monsters wander nearby streets, and some places restore your hit points. Battles can be fought alone or with others, and can be auto-resolved for players on the move.

Bigger monsters appear on the map as special targets that up to 12 players can fight together, turning a park or station square into an impromptu raid. You can also set a home location anywhere you like, a handy base for collecting rewards.

The game is pure Dragon Quest in its details: series creator Yuji Horii served as general director, Akira Toriyama designed the characters and monsters, and Koichi Sugiyama provided the music, the same trio who created the original Dragon Quest in 1986.

Why Japan, and only Japan

Dragon Quest Walk has never launched outside Japan, and that is not an accident. Dragon Quest is a national institution there, far bigger than in the West, and the game leans on things that are very Japanese: a dense city fabric with stations, shrines and shops on every block, a culture of walking and public transport, and partnerships with Japanese brands.

It also had perfect timing. Pokémon GO had shown in 2016 that Japanese players would happily walk for a game, but many older Dragon Quest fans wanted something with their favourite series' turn-based battles, story and humour.

The studio behind it

Colopl is a Tokyo mobile developer that began with location-based services before smartphones were common, which made it a natural partner for a walking RPG. It is also known for Shironeko Project (White Cat Project), a 2014 action RPG that became one of Japan's early smartphone hits.

That earlier game led to one of the biggest legal fights in Japanese mobile gaming. Nintendo sued Colopl in 2017, claiming Shironeko Project infringed its patents, and the case was settled in 2021, with Colopl agreeing to pay 3.3 billion yen.

Why it matters

Dragon Quest Walk shows that location-based games do not have to be Pokémon to work. A familiar series, local partnerships and respect for the habits of a specific country can build a giant hit, even one that never travels. It is also a reminder that Japan remains one of the most distinctive mobile markets in the world: a place where an RPG can turn the morning commute into an adventure.

Our take: if you are visiting Japan with a Japanese App Store or Google Play account, give it a try on a city walk; the streets of Tokyo or Kyoto make a wonderful world map. For another Japanese giant that grew out of local play habits, see our Monster Strike story.