Dragon's Dogma 2 loves playing with the obscure
It was hard to know what to expect coming into Capcom's new fantasy action-RPG Dragon's Dogma 2 — a 12-year-old follow-up to a game that gained a loyal following and cemented itself as a cult classic — but does the sequel do enough to be considered one of the biggest games of the year, or is it destined to retain its cult status? Somehow it's both.
Despite not having the name recognition of other more mainstream titles in the genre, there's no doubt Dragon's Dogma 2 has been generating buzz in the lead-up to release, and after playing it for 70 hours, we can say it's mostly justified, if you're willing to play along.
The game is full of polarising gameplay choices, but it's the Vocation system that is the game's foundation. It essentially acts as a class system that determines your combat style and weapon choice, whether it's a Mage casting spells, a Warrior wielding a greatsword, or more creative choices like the Magick Archer that sits somewhere in between.
There are 10 Vocations in total and each is unique and fun enough to keep gameplay and combat fresh throughout. Some will also alter how you play, with exclusive abilities that can be hard to leave behind when switching between them, like the Mage and Sorcerer's levitate skill or the Thief's wall jump.
Switching Vocation is one of the game's best implemented systems, as it's easy and seamless to change it up at any time and you're never punished for it. Not feeling the dual spear-wielding Mystic Spearhand? Why not switch to the devious Trickster who confuses foes and brings a completely new play style?
Your character and Vocation stats level up independently, so you never feel weak even when starting out with a new class. You'll also unlock new skills as you progress, which constantly feels rewarding and helps alleviate the tedium of enemy spam and fighting the same type of monsters over and over.
The lack of enemy variety is definitely a disappointment. While there are numerous giant monsters that appear awesome at first, you quickly realise that once you've fought one dragon or cyclops, you've essentially fought them all. Each type has their own moveset and weaknesses, but these are mostly redundant when you and your three Pawns are turning the screen into a fireworks show trying to bring them down.
That's not to say the combat is dull, though. Climbing a flying griffin Shadow of the Colossus-style or bringing an ogre to its knees is really fun. Luckily new combat skills and switching Vocations keep you engaged in battles, as it's neat to see what that super secret move-scroll does that was rewarded to you by a Maister for a quest you completed earlier.
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The Pawn system is what sets it apart from other action-RPGs. Pawns are essentially companions that join you on your adventure. You create your main Pawn at the start of the game and can hire two more to form your group of four.
It works as an online component, with other user-created Pawns hireable from the pool, alongside official Pawns created by Capcom. Each has specific behaviours, traits and a Vocation, which you should take into account when forming your party so that everyone is working well together.
This is honestly a pretty cool feature, especially when your own Pawn is being chosen by other players and coming back with information they saw in the other player's world. They can also guide you to quests if they know where to go and be useful for carrying items among other things.
Don't expect fully-fleshed out characters as teammates though, as Pawns are disposable and are akin to full-time summons you'd see in Elden Ring. You can more or less curate your own experience, so if you want to mitigate the repetitive dialogue, you can choose someone who won't speak much as noted in their profile, or hire someone who will combine health items automatically among other quality-of-life stuff.
The massive open world is made up of two main districts that can feel generic at first glance. The map is huge and uncovers gradually as you travel, which took us roughly 60 hours in total to see the whole thing, but the amount of time it takes lends itself to how thorough you want to be and how much you want to dedicate yourself to exploring.
Exploration isn't always an easy or fun task in Dragon's Dogma 2. The game has a day and night cycle, with the dark truly being a hindrance. You can only see a few yards in front of you and it can sometimes feel incredibly unfair when the game puts you in this position due to pacing, leaving you to contend with impaired vision and enemies that only spawn at night.
It feels intentional, and it encourages you to plan your journey like an actual camping trip as you make sure to reach a campsite before night sets in, which provides relief like a Dark Souls-style bonfire in dire situations. Camping packs aren't always lying around and are very heavy to carry, so having one on you at all times isn't a guarantee. Adding to the feeling of dread, camp sites can also be attacked in the middle of the night making it all useless.
All these conscious choices together, combined with enemies appearing every 20 steps, can be very frustrating for people who just want to explore. You can overcome this with fast travel ferry stones, which allow you to instantly teleport you to port crystals. These however are very limited, aren't easy to obtain, and you manually have to place them in the world yourself. You can get very strategic with this, as you can recover them and use them again anywhere you like, so planning the best locations is key depending on the regions you visit.
Ox carts are another form of fast travel that can be handy between a few prominent locations, but it wouldn't be Dragon's Dogma without a catch. Much like your nights spent camping, your ride between towns can also be interrupted by monsters.
These punishing design decisions in relation to exploration can feel confusing when paired with other aspects of Dragon's Dogma 2. We wouldn't describe it as a difficult game — we never got stuck on a fight, always had money for upgrades, and had plenty of revive wakestones, ferry stones and camping packs at all times — but if you're not perfect in your planning, travelling between locations can start to feel like a chore.
There are undoubtedly things to find in the world, though. Outside of the caves that all mostly look the same, hidden between its mundane landmarks are a few surprises. It's these secrets that keep you playing because when you do find something out of the ordinary, it feels incredibly satisfying. It almost justifies the pain it took to reach them.
In fact, you can essentially roll credits in Dragon's Dogma 2 without uncovering half of the game's map. We were very surprised when we suddenly "finished" the game at 37 hours, and we weren't trying to rush. It was only after reloading we realised just how much optional content there is to uncover.
While the game's story and most of its characters are uninspired, there are elements of creativity with how quests and NPCs are handled. A lot of it is exhausting fetch quests, escort missions and tasks clearly marked on your map, but sprinkled among them are quests you'll have to find and figure out yourself. Sometimes they're not even listed in your quest list, so you'll have to keep a mental note of where certain characters reside so you can visit them and trigger a new story mission.
It's moments like these that make the entire experience worthwhile, as some of the optional stuff is delightful to see play out. Side quests in general will have outcomes that influence a character's fate, and have conclusions that overlap with other completed quests, making us wonder just how different things are depending on the things you do and the order you do them.
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Dragon's Dogma 2 loves playing with the obscure, and on a few occasions we thought the game had bugged and stalled progress, only to be left gobsmacked at the solution after executing some risky and convoluted tactic to complete them.
What exactly you have to do next isn't always made clear by quest descriptions, and we were sometimes left confused about what the game wanted from us. We're all for no hand-holding and cryptic solutions, but players wanting to clear their quest list may be left stumped unless they think outside the box, or get frustrated trying.
Of course, seeing all of the optional content and finding these hidden encounters comes with the caveat that uncovering everything requires a lot of travelling. If you've not set up fast travel points, you'll find yourself staring into space asking, 'Do I really have to make that journey again?' And the answer is always yes.
That's the price you have to pay if you want to see everything. Quests will send you back to the same locations a number of times, but you push through because these morsels of discovery can be meaningful. In our playthrough, we didn't unlock a certain Vocation until 50 hours in after completing a random side quest, but depending on the route you take it could take you less or more time.
The game has its fair share of issues outside of its intentional mechanics. Besides the uneven performance on console, cutscenes can feel janky but serviceable, quests can be buggy, and most frustrating of all, Pawns and NPCs regularly have pathing issues that result in them not following, falling off cliffs or drowning, which can really test your patience when juggling the game's harsh time limits on some quests.
People who play Dragon's Dogma 2 expecting a typical action-RPG may be surprised, as it does more than enough to set itself apart from its counterparts in the genre. Despite its imperfections, it's great to see a game take chances, do something different, and celebrate ambiguity in game design — though not all players will feel that way, and it's these risks that keep it teetering between mainstream appeal and cult status.
Without getting into spoiler territory, many people won't see the game's true ending or see half of the content on offer, and you have to respect a game that's brave enough to do this and knowingly expects it to happen. We'd even bet that some reviews haven't witnessed a massive chunk of the endgame as we weren't privy to a guide of any kind.
The game does wrap up nicely and although you can't continue your game after finishing, there is the option of New Game Plus, where you can start over with your items and stats and try out any Vocations you may have skipped.
We experienced truly jaw-dropping moments that felt incredibly rewarding because of how vague they were to figure out in our time with the game. Its flaws are almost explained away, and we're willing to forgive most of them because of the twists and secrets. There will be countless guides when the game drops, but we'd encourage a playthrough without them to get the most out of it.
We said it was hard knowing what to expect coming into it, but if you played the first, you'll know already because it's mostly more of the same, and if you're new to the series, Dragon's Dogma 2's blend of weird is an adventure at least worth digging your claws into.
That's because Dragon's Dogma 2 is just so damn interesting. It walks a tightrope of intrigue that balances quirky systems, fun combat and obscure secrets with frustrating circumstances, weird world-building and curious design choices, and somehow manages to make it across, and if you embrace all it has to offer, you might too.
Platform reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Dragon's Dogma 2 is out March 22 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
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