Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined is enjoying series-high player numbers and great reviews on Steam, but there's one game keeping it from being the franchise's biggest launch on the platform: Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D, which is still ahead by a wide margin.
Specifically, we're talking about Steam's tracking of peak concurrent players. Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined has managed an all-time peak player count of 27,390 as of yesterday - likely to be its highest peak as it happened the weekend after launch - while Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D's peak from its November 2024 launch is 45,357, quite the jump from 7 Reimagined.
As noted by the folks on ResetEra, both of these numbers are significantly higher than other games in the Dragon Quest series, with those entries ranking as follows:
- Dragon Quest I & I HD-2D Remake : 15,608
- Dragon Quest XI OG : 11,793
- Dragon Quest X Offline : 3,538
- Dragon Quest Monsters : 2,987
Not that anyone asked, but I do think Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D deserves its number one spot as a fantastic remake and entry to the series, although OG Dragon Quest 11 deserves way more respect. I would argue it's an equally worthwhile entry point to the series with the franchise's best storytelling to date, but I'm admittedly biased as it was the first Dragon Quest game I played.
As for Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined, I'm glad people are enjoying it and it's by no means a bad game, but I'm largely in agreement with GR's Dustin Bailey that the myriad changes Square Enix made to the original game result in a much more approachable, but ultimately less satisfying, JRPG. It's very much worth playing, but for my money it lacks a lot of the identity that makes Dragon Quest such a uniquely rewarding, although often punishing series.
