Who is going to follow these Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake guidelines, Square?

Square Enix has issued content creation guidelines around Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake, its latest re-entry into the series. These are being enforced until November 29, a whole month after its release, to ensure that spoilers don’t get out.

The company isn’t trying to nuke coverage of the game, but is seemingly concerned with its story. Specifically, it points out that streamers and video makers won’t be able to share details of whatever happens after the “second credit sequence in Dragon Quest II”. This is potentially tied to what the creator of the series, Yuji Horii, has said.

According to Horii, there’s a surprise for those who play the games in chronological order. Dragon Quest III’s remake launched in November of last year and is a prequel to the first two games. Presumably, the post-credits sequence that Square really doesn’t want anyone to see has something to do with that.

However, it’s not the only rule going out. Amongst the usual requests for proper crediting and giving the thumbs up for monetisation, Square is pushing for channels that post soundtracks and cutscenes not to do that:

“You are not permitted to create edited video content or playlists with the goal of showing only cinematic scenes (as opposed to gameplay), or only listening [to] music from the game.”

There’s no way Square Enix can stop Dragon Quest spoilers

It’ll be interesting to see how Square manages to tackle this, and if it even can. Over the last few days, I’ve seen players who agreed to a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for Bungie’s Marathon tests post clips and generally break the NDA. With a massive sea of creators out there, across multiple platforms, there’s absolutely no way that this will be enforced properly.

Once whatever secret that Horii has hinted at escapes onto the web, it’s only a matter of time before someone has an “EXPLAINED” article or video up. It’s funny that a company like Square Enix, which has been “aggressive” in other areas of tech, like artificial intelligence, is hopeful that the internet actually listens to its guidelines.

Then again, from years of listening to podcasts of veterans from the industry talk about how Square Enix (and other Japanese companies) used to handle websites in the 1990s and very early 00s, I’m not entirely surprised that they’ve come to the conclusion that this will totally work.

In the past, Square wouldn’t allow websites access to trailers on CDs or tapes, as they thought it was the devil’s work, in a nutshell. Those were for the television shows that would only dedicate five minutes of their time to whatever it is.

It’s not like Dragon Quest’s 2D-HD remakes are the only games to receive this treatment. Each time I see these guidelines go up, I have the same reaction: Who is reading and following these? The Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series also received guidelines, as do a few of their other more recent releases (or rereleases, did we need guidelines for the LIVE A LIVE remaster?).

Either way, Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake releases tomorrow, October 30, on both Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, PlayStation, Xbox Series, and PC.