After years of waiting, you can now play Dragon Quest X on the Nintendo Switch...in the United States...for free.

Yes, the game is still in Japanese and there are some language barriers to overcome, but it's surprisingly simple and easy to get used to, even without Dragon Quest 10 in English.

I've had a lot of people ask me how to get a Japanese Nintendo account, as well as how to get DQ 10 up and running. So this seemed like a good thing to write up. After all, maybe it'll help others (and you, reading this right now) to play an excellent Dragon Quest game for free!

Step 1: How to Create a Japanese Nintendo Account

The first step is to create a Japanese Nintendo Account.

You'll need to have an email account that's separate from any other Nintendo accounts you have. That part is pretty painless. Then, simply go into System Settings on the Switch, scroll down to "User," and then select "Add User."

From there, simply click "Create New User" and create one with that separate email I mentioned. You can fill the whole thing out in English, and then just set your "Region" to Japan. The whole process takes maybe two minutes. Not bad, eh?

Congratulations, you now have a Japanese Nintendo Account!

Step 2: Find Dragon Quest 10 on the Nintendo Switch Japanese eShop

Surprisingly, this is one of the trickier steps. Unless you know Japanese and can search for it, tracking the game down in the eShop is hard. Searching for "Dragon Quest" in English, for instance, showed me the Builders games and some DLC for XI S, but that was all.

The easiest way to find the game? Go to the search bar with the magnifying glass icon, and simply type in "X." Dragon Quest X should be the first result, and you can begin downloading DQ X immediately.

Step 3: Download DQ X For Free

Once DQ 10 has finished downloading to your Switch, you're almost there! There are just a couple more things to do. But don't worry, you won't be waiting much longer to play Dragon Quest X in all its glory.

This is not the only way to get started with DQ X, but it doesn't require you to purchase anything. Following this method gets you access to the free trial version, which encompasses ALL of the 1.0 content and about half of Version 2.0. In other words, you're getting a ton of game for free.

Note: If you want to continue playing after the trial, you'll need to follow these instructions so you don't lose your DQ X character data when you swap over to the paid version.

Step 4: Starting Dragon Quest 10 on Nintendo Switch

First, you'll have two options to choose from on the first screen. I used the Google Translate app on my phone to see which one was the seemingly "free" option.

Click on the second option, like this:

After that, you'll have to highlight and click on the bar directly underneath that. In the image below, it's words that are flanked by green diamond symbols on either side.

This will take you to the next screen, where you can click the big, nice brown button.

Now you can play Dragon Quest 10 for free on Switch! After that, you'll see the opening movie and can get started creating your character. Enjoy!

Step 5: Enjoy Astoltia!

This isn't really a step, I guess, but it's where the fun actually starts. Even though it's not in English, Dragon Quest X is an absolute blast to play through. I even subscribed after the free trial and kept playing through even more of the content. There's some I still need to return and play through.

I also did a series of blogs about my early time with Dragon Quest X in a series of posts I'm calling Adventures in Astoltia.

UPDATE #1: I also wrote a follow-up detailing how to get off the free trial "Easy Play" without losing your Dragon Quest 10 character data.

UPDATE #2: If you want to learn how to subscribe to the game once you purchase it, or after your free trial ends, you can learn the best ways to subscribe to Dragon Quest X on Nintendo Switch.

And if you'd like to hear us talk about Dragon Quest X (and Dragon Quest in general), be sure to check out our weekly DQ podcast, Dragon Quest FM, or join us on Patreon!

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