This Friday, March 22, the Dragon’s Dogma franchise will make its grand return to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC. After making its debut on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012, this Western-inspired medieval RPG developed by Capcom is finally getting a well-deserved second installment. Better known for the Resident Evil and Street Fighter licenses, which have been experiencing a real renaissance in recent years, the Japanese video game giant intends to make its role-playing game a new cult title. Faced with the growing popularity of FromSoftware’s Souls-like recipe, Capcom has every interest in capitalizing on this growing appeal. Dark fantasy under the leadership of Japanese studios has never been so popular with Western players and the studio intends to take its place in this flourishing market.
Since the announcement of its development in 2022, Dragon’s Dogma 2 has not failed to pique the curiosity of players. With its stunning visuals and increasingly realistic mechanics applied to titanic clashes, the title has managed to capture our attention with each appearance. Many missed the first opus and Capcom is putting all the chances on its side by promising an epic and memorable experience. Discovering or rediscovering Dragon’s Dogma in 2024 means embarking on an adventure that is as grandiose as it is disconcerting and which promises to divide players. So you are wondering if this game is for you? Here are three major points that we noted during our test to better understand what this title has in store.
A highly advanced character editor
For RPG fans, appearances are important. Part of the immersion in an adventure of this kind lies above all in the bond that one forges with one's character. By creating it from scratch, in our image or that of our desire, it becomes all the easier to feel an integral part of the story. In Dragon’s Dogma 2, players looking for an advanced character editor will certainly find what they are looking for. Visibly proud of the efforts made for this feature, Capcom even took care to deploy this tool before the game’s release.
For two weeks now, budding adventurers have been enjoying creating ever more realistic protagonists to share on social networks. Leon Kennedy, Geralt of Rivia or Timothée Chalamet: character creation can do wonders and seems truly limitless.
The animal race of the Leonins has even made it possible to recreate emblematic creatures such as the Mogs from Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Achieving such a result, however, requires long hours of adjustments with the many customization tools offered, which is far from being within everyone's reach. Here is our advice: start creating your character now so as not to lose precious hours of play at launch!
An immersive (but sometimes confusing) experience
During our second preview of the title, getting to grips with Dragon's Dogma 2 was a source of concern. These few hours of play at different stages of the adventure revealed a troubling complexity, both in the gameplay and in the overall structure of the title. The excessive realism seemed to slow down the experience and promised to confuse players accustomed to the comfort of modern games. Discovering the full game, however, reassured us on this point: Capcom's RPG is not fundamentally off-putting, but it certainly won't be able to please all players.
It's clear that the developers set out to meet the needs of a very specific niche. Rather than offering a new, run-of-the-mill role-playing game, Dragon's Dogma 2 stands out by offering an experience that requires rigor and investment, in line with the themes addressed by this universe. Where Souls-likes are steeped in dark fantasy by offering merciless clashes, Capcom's latest infuses its medieval context into all of its mechanics. It's not a question of taking players by the hand, but rather forcing them to borrow carts as a means of rapid transport, or to buy return stones for teleportation. Pure role-players will be delighted to advance their character in this complex world, while budding adventurers may well have trouble getting into it.
A mix of gameplays that have already proven themselves
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a title that is at the very least unique, but its handling promises to be familiar for fans of certain cult licenses. If you're one of those who've spent many hours on Monster Hunter or Elden Ring in recent years, Capcom's new RPG will surely not leave you indifferent. It's not a question of categorizing Dragon's Dogma according to its counterparts and competitors, but rather of using them as examples to more simply define the kind of adventure that awaits players.
If the equipment and progression systems of these two licenses have already made you want to immerse yourself for hours in tables of statistics in order to obtain the most optimized gear according to your objectives, you will find these same sensations here. As for the clashes, the mechanics of climbing massive monsters openly take up what Capcom has applied to Monster Hunter since the opus World. Finally, the physics of the characters and their attacks (magical as well as physical) also finds a surprising balance between the experiences of the Souls-like and the monster hunting game. Dragon’s Dogma 2 is in the continuity of these video game mastodons and will not fail to convince fans of the genre. It remains to be seen whether the pawn system specific to Capcom’s RPG will manage to stand out and convince players, or whether it will be forgotten in favor of the rest of the gameplay.
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