Yuji Horii On Early Days In Game Dev: ‘I Would Just Do Everything Myself’

Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii has been designing games for upwards of 40 years, and though he’s 71 today, he still remains heavily involved in the development of the long-running RPG franchise that began in 1986. During our cover story trip to Tokyo, Japan, to play Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, Game Informer had the opportunity to interview Horii for 90 minutes and asked him about the differences between game development in the 1980s and in 2025.

He says the entire landscape is completely different. 

“You know, the development landscape is just completely different compared to back then,” Horii tells Game Informer. “On the original Dragon Quest, we had a team of less than 10 people, but now we have a team of 300 to 400 spending years and years making one game; not to mention the rising development cost, too. So it’s just completely different.” 

Horii says back in the early years of Dragon Quest, he recalls doing the programming, some of the art – “I would just do everything by myself,” he recalls, reminiscing on his early development days leading up to Dragon Quest. 

“People would just do that, and that [game] actually got sold as a finished product back then – just one person working on a single game,” he adds. “That’s just not something that can happen today.” 

Of course, games developed by just one person release all the time, and there’s an argument to be made that the growth within the indie scene proves it’s not only possible, but easier than ever. But Horii is likely thinking within the Dragon Quest franchise, and in that regard, he’s right – making something like Dragon Quest XI or the in-development Dragon Quest XII as a solo developer sounds like a much more challenging, if not impossible, task compared to the 1980s. 

Dragon Quest VII Reimagined launches on February 5 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, Switch, and PC.

In the meantime, check out this article breaking down everything in the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined issue of Game Informer, and be sure to subscribe here if you haven’t yet to access the Dragon Quest VII Reimagined cover story, our deep dive into Dragon Quest history with creator Yuji Horii, and so much more.