At the age of 68, the one who did not hesitate to put the cover back on Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate, was therefore rewarded for having left “an indelible impact on the art of game development and on games as a whole“, to use the words of the GDC. Yûji Horii joins names like Amy Hennig, Tim Schafer, Tim Sweeney, Todd Howard, John Carmack or Mark Cerny but also other well-known Japanese personalities such as Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima , Ken Kutaragi and Hironobu Sakaguchi.
If he had not made the trip to San Francisco, Yûji Horii split a video message in which he retraced his journey as a young manga reader who initially dreamed of becoming a mangaka, to the point of elsewhere to get very close to the professional world from his years at university. However, the trajectory of the young Yûji changes with the appearance of the personal computer. Also a math lover, he quickly tries his hand at coding as an autodidact and participates in a programming contest organized by Enix. It was by winning this competition 40 years ago that Yûji Horii began his career in video games.
In June 1983, he released his first commercial game, the investigative visual novel Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken. A success that launched his career and allowed him to materialize his own vision of the role-playing games he loves, such as Wizardry and Ultimate. “For me, Dragon Quest was like a manga, the story unfolding through short conversations. It was like a manga that you could play on your computer. My team and I are currently working on the latest installment in the series, Dragon Quest XII, as well as many other titles. I hope the whole world enjoys them as much as Dragon Quest XI. We will soon have other announcements for you!“
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