A surprise drop of the Drakengard OST has ignited a rumour that a Drakengard remaster may be announced later in the month. A well-known industry insider, Dusk Golem, after sharing their love for the series and surprise of the OST release, shared on Discord:
“So I love Drakengard, I blabbered about it. Someone was kind to share with me that the random Drakengard OST drop yesterday is tied to an announcement happening later this month. I wasn’t given a whole lot of context, but I’m guessing they meant at a State of Play or TGS. I’m very curious as a big Drakengard fan.”
Revisiting Drakengard
Drakengard, or Drag-on Dragoon to its Japanese audience, was a 2003 PS2 exclusive game that wasn’t a very well-received game. It was born out of a desire to make a dragon flight sim combat game ala Ace Combat, but as development progressed, they included ground combat sections to mimic the newly popular Dynasty Warriors formula as well. The co-producer Takuya Iwasaki intended to take the role of director, but with other commitments, the task fell to Yoko Taro.
This decision is what probably saved the first game from being a footnote in the PS2 library, as Yoko Taro gave the story a unique tone. This was grimdark, a brutal world with good people with horrible motivations. This was Game of Thrones before Game of Thrones. The English localisation was heavily edited, but if you read between the lines, it’s all still there.
The Legacy of the Series
Drakengard did well enough to spawn a couple of direct sequels to varying success, but it was its spin-off that took the world by storm. You see, the original had a number of endings, including one “joke” ending that Taro himself said was inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion and was not to be taken seriously. Yoko Taro, though, took this ending and ran with it, plotting out a new world and coming up with the Nier storyline.
Neir and its sequels, rereleases, and mobile ports have become a staple of the Square Enix library, but its progenitor series has remained stuck on its aging software. I recently played Drakengard myself, and even though I am a fan, I can tell you it’s definitely a product of its time, so even the rumours of a rerelease or a remaster sent me in a bit of a tizzy.
Does the news of a possible Drakengard rerelease or remaster excite you or is this the first you’ve heard of the series? Sound off in the comments below.
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Drakengard with Neir graphics? dear gods yes please!
We need bigger games like that again, not just the soulslike ground level games which are all starting to just feel like copy/pastes with a fresh skin on them!