Dragon's Dogma 2 REVIEW - a subversive fantasy masterpiece
Rhianne Ward
In a lot of games, especially role-playing games, the aim is to make the experience feel like an adventure. Games are often structured to suit this, sending the player across its fictional world, visiting towns, cities, ruins and so on, to evoke this sense of scale that wouldn’t be possible were the story limited to a single setting.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is, first and foremost, a game about adventure. You are the Arisen, a seeming nobody who just so happens to be the only one capable of slaying the dragon and saving the world. To do so requires a lot of experience in a lot of places, acquiring allies along the way who will direct you towards all the equipment and combat training you need to succeed in this impossible task. To slay the dragon is to win the game and take the throne of Vermund, ushering in a new age of prosperity free from the flying reptile’s fearsome clutches.
That’s what the blurb on the back of the box might say, at least. In practice, you’ll spend most of your time exploring, uncovering secrets and helping out the general populous, and, in doing so, finding your own fun. You’ll encounter enemies during your travels and every victory notch on your belt works towards unlocking new moves and styles for your chosen vocation (this game’s version of classes). You’ll often come up against mini bosses too, typically the same handful of enemy types throughout the game, and while you’d expect that to get stale, it really never does if you’re willing to engage with your own curiosity.
The game all but begs you to try out as many vocations as possible, and since vocations level up surprisingly quick, there’s not really a point in sticking with the same one for too long. Even then, each vocation has so many unique skills, of which you can only equip four at a time, so my archer character focusing on chip damage output might play completely different to someone else’s more concerned with inflicting status effects with special arrows. There’s enormous build variety to be found, even in the small places.
Beyond the huge variety of ways your Arisen can dispatch enemies, battles are influenced massively by the environment too. An ogre fight in an open field will look and feel completely different to one in a cave or on the edge of a cliff. The player is incentivised to use their surroundings to their advantage as well. Many vocations have some kind of plunging attack capable of dealing huge damage on a hit, so high ground is often the first thing I look for in a fight. Whenever I was up against a griffin, I usually tried to bait it into an enclosed space, like a canyon, so it had no room for aerial attacks, and if all went well, that approach was often the deciding factor between victory and defeat. Dragon’s Dogma 2 wants you to play smart, but more importantly, wants to build itself in such a way where you’re afforded the freedom to play smart, and it absolutely succeeds in that.
The recurring theme in all this is the importance of player choice. A lot is said in big-budget games about “playing your own way”, which typically just boils down to choosing between combat or stealth until you’re caught, followed by combat. Rarely does this attitude extend to the rest of the game, but Dragon’s Dogma 2 makes the promise of “playing your own way” its entire design ethos, and the lengths it goes to fulfil that promise are incredible.
For one, you’re basically free to go anywhere on the map from the moment you escape the opening area. Of course, there are restrictions in the form of guarded gates requiring permits to pass through, but more often than not, there are alternative, albeit lengthier, paths leading to the same spot. With a lot of patience and force of will, you can unlock almost everything there is to see in the game world, max out every vocation and become extraordinarily powerful, before doing even a single main quest. I know this because my flatmate did pretty much this exact thing, and for that he is insane and I respect him massively (love ya James xx).
It’s pretty astonishing how much you can get away with in this game. I’m fairly certain you could kill basically every single NPC in the game and manage to finish the story regardless. Dragon‘s Dogma 2 accounts for every choice you make with rare exception, and part of the reason for that is because the main goal of defeating the dragon doesn’t really have anything to do with the other characters in the game. They’ve got their own politicking going on, and getting involved might make your quest easier, but mostly you’re just acting out of the general goodness of your heart (not that you have one in this scenario). Without spoiling anything, there’s literally an event that can happen completely organically which results in everybody within a certain area dying all at once and being completely removed from the story (unless you have an incredibly specific, one-time-use consumable to rectify the problem).
Every step of the way, Dragon’s Dogma 2 wants you to have an adventure all your own. It knows that sooner or later you’re going to hit the important beats, so in the meantime, enjoy yourself and live your best life. Kill a few griffins, turn a Medusa to stone, go crazy with it! Sooner or later, you’re going to have to face this dragon, and when you do, you’ll have all the experiences you’ve had close at hand, ready for use whenever you desire.
It’s an interesting vibe for a game so steeped in prophecy and fate. You are the Arisen, after all. Your destiny, whether you like it or not, is to slay a dragon and save the world. The game is very clear about this fact that no matter what happens, a path has been laid out for you and you will follow it, even if you take some detours along the way. In a different game, this would feel like some sort of dissonance. After all, a game, an RPG, all about freedom deciding at the last minute to railroad you into a very specific outcome? Sounds like a copout.
And yet, it is in this dissonance that Dragon’s Dogma 2 finds its flavour. The game is littered with examples of characters who were once Arisen, who failed the slay their dragon for whatever reason, and then just…kept existing. Sigurd lives alone in a seaside village, Cliodhna isolates herself from society to be with her beloved, Lamond gets drunk and cooks eggs in the Volcanic Island hot spring, and Luz acts as oracle of the Battahl desert awaiting newly awoken Arisen seeking guidance. There’s also the Dragonforged and the old guy on the outskirts of Harve Village with fourth-wall-breaking knowledge. All alive, of course, but isolated.
For a variety of reasons, these individuals were unable to fulfil their destinies and, as a consequence, became separated from the world around them. In a sense, it’s a stark reminder of what may become our own Arisen – a life of solitude – but it also begs the question: are we saving the world, or simply perpetuating a cycle of dragons and Arisens chosen to defeat them?
This extends to the general vibe I noticed many reviewers picking up on which I thought was interesting, in that Dragon’s Dogma 2, in many ways, feels very derivative of the first game. This has been a criticism for many who took this as an issue of limited imagination from a developer more interested in refining what’s worked before, rather than trying for something completely fresh, which may feel especially odd for a follow-up releasing over a decade after the original.
However, to me, this feeling of repetition is both intentional and essential to the point of Dragon’s Dogma 2. You can see it as early as the game’s title card, which simply says, “Dragon’s Dogma“, foregoing the sequel branding. I thought this was odd considering that’s literally not the name of the game, but I figured this was just a cutesy recognition of this game’s place as a continuation of the Dragon’s Dogma series. However, I have never been more glad to be wrong. It turns out that fabled Dragon’s Dogma 2 title card is absolutely in the game, but it is hidden deep in the narrative. This game is an extraordinary sequel in all regards, but realising this requires delving through the entire tale from start to finish. The game’s genius rug-pull will only reveal itself to those with inquisitive minds, and a desire to peek behind the curtain.
The game wants desperately for the player to consider the reality of the world they’ll likely spend dozens of hours exploring, and it encourages you to think outside the box in this way through every facet of its design. A game about player choice, where the greatest choice of all is between slaying the dragon, resisting the call, or maybe even something completely different. I won’t spoil what truth awaits you, should you have the drive to seek it out.
It helps, then, that the journey to that point is unbelievably fun. There are a handful of games that managed to utterly absorb my time and existence while I played them: Citizen Sleeper, Elden Ring, F1 Manager, Hades, Outer Wilds, Red Dead Redemption 2… typically it takes a special kind of sauce to capture my brain in such a specific way, where time ceases to be and all that remains is video game, and Dragon’s Dogma 2 joins that beautiful pantheon.
I think it’s a matter of immersion, and that’s always going to be a tricky balancing act for any game, but DD2 manages it with a few clever design decisions. For one, the world is completely seamless. With very little exception, every part of the game is accessible without having to wait for a load screen, and that makes it so easy to lose yourself in the experience. It’s the thing Naughty Dog does where the game experience is virtually seamless, leaving no room for distraction, allowing the player to focus entirely on the story. Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a lot less story focused, of course, but the result is just as effective at establishing a sense of place in the game world.
On top of that, getting around that world is carefully considered too. Fast travel is extremely limited, so your main mode of transport between populated areas is typically by oxcart. This makes travelling a lot quicker and simpler, but the trade-off is it takes a lot of in-game time to do, plus there’s always the threat of the cart being set upon by enemies. You better make sure that cart, the ox, or the driver doesn’t get taken out in the ensuing battle, because any one of those outcomes will result in you and your party being stranded in the middle of nowhere, in the dead of night. It’s always an interesting gamble, and plays into this general message of the game about actions and consequences.
Beyond that, though, the oxcart system, especially the fact that it only runs at certain times of the day, does a lot to make the world feel alive. Dragon’s Dogma 2 doesn’t revolve around you, the player – rather, the world mostly exists outside of your influence and you have to play by its rules in order to get by. It’s incredibly cool and contributed massively to immersion. I’m a huge fan of when games justify their mechanics with in-universe reasoning or lore, and Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a game made entirely of those little features.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a game about a whole lot of things, actually, and it’s hard to pin down any one central thesis. It’s a game about choice; existing within a world and taking actions which result in compelling consequences. It’s also about cycles; a self-awareness of this game’s existence as a sequel derivative in ways to its predecessor, and how deliberate that might be in a story about prophecies, destinies and fate. Ultimately, though, the theme that stands out to me the most is that of community.
I haven’t even mentioned the pawns yet! Dragon’s Dogma 2 has a mechanic wherein you can bring on companions to aid you in your journey, known as pawns. The pawns in-universe take the form of humans and beastren, but they possess no will of their own, their existence revolving entirely around serving the Arisen in their eternal quest. Each Arisen has with them a main pawn, who you give form and name in a character creator, to then follow you permanently throughout the game. Any other pawns you add to your party are the main pawns of other players, and they all bring their own unique set of skills and abilities as set by their masters.
It’s an implementation of online play similar in spirit to the Souls series or Death Stranding, where different players can affect one another’s worlds indirectly, and I adore it. I also love that you can give gifts to pawns you release from your party, as a sign of thanks for their help to bring back to their master. I have a friend who had my pawn in his party, and in return sent me a Wakestone, an extremely useful item which revives the player from death, and it ended up saving my life in a boss fight soon after. I think so many games would benefit from a system like this, which allows you to (sort of) anonymously help each other out. I found myself gifting out really good items from my own inventory, because I like to think it might have ended up being exactly what that person needed in that moment. Or, at the very least, a cool thing that they can be happy to have.
Beyond that, pawns also serve as guides for certain quests. If a pawn in your party has already done a quest in somebody else’s game, they will retain the information from that experience and being it into your world, meaning they can take you to the point of interest for whatever objective you’re following. This is especially helpful for certain quests which are incredibly vague about item placements or NPC locations, and overall feels like a much more organic solution to the issue of hand-holding in games like Dragon’s Dogma 2. You can even deliberately hire pawns with knowledge in whatever quest you’re following, making it another element of player choice in a game which excels in that regard.
The point I’m meandering towards regarding the theme of community is clear, right? Dragon’s Dogma 2 incentivises cooperative play between Arisens across dimensions, and in doing so it instilled in me this understanding that despite playing through a Chosen One storyline, my journey would have been impossible without the help of the people around me, both NPCs and other real life humans playing the game. It is virtually impossible to avoid getting help from at least one other person in this game, putting a dent in the belief that the Arisen is the only one who can slay the dragon. Of course, they have to be the one to deal the killing blow, but the entire rest of the game suggests to me that this is less about the Arisen, but rather a tale of the people who came together to overcome a unified goal.
(For this next section, I’ll be spoiling the shit out of the game’s multiple endings. I’ve sectioned it off with dividers, so if you’d prefer to avoid that for now, just skip to the next part below. Okie dokie let’s go!)
The ending suggests as much too. Massive spoilers ahead, by the way, you’ve been warned. The two main endings both involve embracing the role of the Chosen One. Whether you choose to sacrifice your beloved in the name of power, or slay the dragon and take the throne of Vermund, you are fulfilling the role set for you at the start of the game. You get exactly what was promised to you from the jump, and to some, this may be sufficient.
However, the game has another ending – a hidden one – only accessible if you choose to ignore the throne which you have rightfully earned after dozens of hours – potentially hundreds of in-game days – of hard work and perseverance, in favour of something else.
It requires you acknowledge that your Arisen is trapped in a loop, signified by the many former Arisens you’ve met on your journey, chewed up and spat out by this neverending prophecy, and demand real, tangible change. The game tries to punish you for this, thrusting the world into an unmoored state, a nightmare realm where tainted lesser dragons roam dried-up lakes and deadlier monsters roam the roads and paths, making travel virtually impossible for the average citizen.
But then, despite this, you persevere some more. You push back against the hellish tide, and bring every faction together by solving their disputes and having them acknowledge their petty squabbles are, in the face of oblivion, just that: petty. It’s a triumphant show of force against the beings which weave the tapestry of this narrative that the world is capable of change, given the chance. Even the pawns, perpetual servants of the Arisen throughout the game, manage to seize some amount of personal autonomy by the story’s end, all thanks to the player’s efforts to dismantle the Greater Will.
(Spoilers over, you can come out now <3)
Dragon’s Dogma 2, in that sense, becomes a game about people, or more accurately, choosing to believe in people and their capacity to choose for themselves. It shows within its own narrative, but also in the way it operates as a modern open world video game. In a gaming landscape with excessive hand-holding and the dumbing down of mechanics for broader appeal, Dragon’s Dogma 2 stands out by allowing more freedom than almost any RPG I’ve played in recent memory. Dragon’s Dogma 2 wants you to break from the intended path and explore new horizons. The destination you arrive at may not be all that you hope for, but at the very least, it will be you who made that path happen. Your journey led to that outcome, and that’s more valuable than any result chosen for you. You are your own master; now go fuck some shit up, on your own terms.
