Good news for all you Dragon Quest 11 fans out there, as the game has proven to be an incredible success for Square Enix. The developer announced that total worldwide shipments and digital sales for Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age have exceeded four million units.

According to the press release, this impressive milestone includes both the Japanese and international versions of the JRPG. More than half of that number comes from sales in Japan, where the long-running franchise has always been a national phenomenon.

However, this bodes well for international fans as well, as Square Enix recently revealed that Dragon Quest XI needs to sell well enough outside of Japan to justify localizations of future Dragon Quest installments. I’d say four million worldwide would be good enough, especially with an upcoming Dragon Quest XI Nintendo Switch port that will surely boost sales even further.

I even called Dragon Quest XI the “best JRPG of the current games generation.” Head on over here for my review of the game, and why it managed to perfect the JRPG genre despite its lack of any true innovation.

Besides that, 2018 is also the 20th anniversary of the Dragon Quest Monsters franchise. Think of Dragon Quest Monsters as a spinoff series where it plays more like a Pokémon version of Dragon Quest, where players capture and raise iconic monsters like Slimes.

To celebrate this occasion, Square Enix has announced a brand new Dragon Quest Monsters game for consoles, starring younger versions of Dragon Quest XI characters Erik and his sister, Mia. This will be the first DQ Monsters game to be developed for consoles since the PS1.

This announcement may mean a thriving future for the Dragon Quest franchise as a whole, which means the possibility of more major releases in international regions. It’s great that more non-Japanese gamers are finally noticing the JRPG franchise, after a whopping three decades where only a handful of titles have even been released outside of Japan.

Here’s a first look at Akira Toriyama’s illustrations of Erik and Mia for the upcoming Dragon Quest Monsters game. (Via Game’s Talk)