As we hone in on our most wanted game of the upcoming year, Capcom have slid into our number three spot with Dragon’s Dogma 2, a wish fulfilling follow-up to the cult classic 2012 original.
Dragon’s Dogma is an action-RPG that took a dash of Dark Souls and a smidgen of Monster Hunter, and wrapped them all up in an open-world experience that managed to make single player adventuring feel like multiplayer with its Pawn system, granting you an AI-controlled party to accompany you on your quest. It was a pretty big hit for Capcom at the start of the last decade, especially with the expanded and improved Dark Arisen outselling the original release, and then the remastered PS4, Xbox One and Switch releases a few years later.
However, despite Director Hideaki Itsuno stating his interest in making a sequel, it felt like we might never see one, until Dragon’s Dogma 2 was announced in 2022.
Coming 11 years on from the original, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is immediately drawing on the newfound power of the current generation with some snazzy-looking visuals to accompany a bunch of upgrades to its underlying gameplay. Fans will be glad to know that the Pawn system is returning, and you can fully customise their look and role depending on what you need. They’ve also been granted a huge amount of dialogue to make interactions with them feel more realistic and engaging.
Following the “bigger is better” philosophy for sequels, the open world map is some four times larger than that in the first game, with the kingdoms of Vermund and Battahl making up this new landmass to explore. You can expect huge fantastical creatures to take down, as well as an all-new narrative that sits alongside the one from the original game. There’s still some dragon/heart-related shenanigans, but this is as much of a reset or reimagining for the franchise as it is a sequel, so if you’ve missed out on the original you don’t have to worry about needing to catch up.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is due out on 22nd March 2024, for PS5, XSX|S and PC.
If you fancy catching up with the original game, you can still nab it on PC, while the PS4 and Xbox One remasters work perfectly on PS5 and XSX|S, and it’s out on Switch as well for fans of gaming in bed.
