Dragons Dogma 2 Preview – Greatness in the Making

Here is our Dragons Dogma 2 Preview, summing up everything you need to know about the sequel to Capcoms Action RPG Gem.

Dragons Dogma 2 was teased and eventually revealed last year during the 10th anniversary celebration of the Dragons Dogma franchise.

It took one more year till we finally got to see some in-game footage. And who would've guessed that Dragons Dogma 2 would look like a sequel to Dragons Dogma? That itself is cause for celebration, after all the 2012 release was one of the best Action RPGs ever made, despite only being a third of what was originally planned.

Will its sequel make good on the potential? Probably. The game is being developed by Capcom Dev Studio 1 who just celebrated a glorious return to form with Devil May Cry 5 in 2019. And with Capcoms current renaissance Dragons Dogma 2 could very well be an all-time great if given enough time.

But What's Dragons Dogma?

Dragons Dogma is a semi-open world Action RPG by Capcom that was released in 2012 on consoles and a few years later with its Dark Arisen expansion on PC.

Back in 2012, it was one of those titles you either fell in love with or dropped before you finished the 2-hour-long intro sequence.

You play as the Arisen, a chosen warrior who had their heart stolen by a dragon that just laid waste to your hometown. Now you're tasked to set out, figure out what is going on, and slay the dragon to reclaim your heart.

And usually, you'd look at Dragons Dogma and think it is just one of those big Western open-world RPGs in the vein of Skyrim and Dragon Age until you notice that the game is made by Capcom.

And not just anyone at Capcom, the game was made by the folks that brought you Devil May Cry 3, 4, and later 5. Something you'll definitely notice as you get into its combat.

Dragons Dogma questioned why aren't action RPGs playing like Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings movies looked. And it achieved that by hiding all the number crunching and stat distributing inherent to the genre behind character creation and exhilarating gameplay.

Again, no surprise considering the team behind it just came off Devil May Cry 4. And while Dragons Dogma isn't a character action game, it definitely features some of those genre's staples such as outstanding combat and enemy design.

Most Action RPGs or even modern titles today usually focus more on character building and expression through skills and abilities. Dragons Dogma baked these principles into its gameplay which created an organic experience.

It's the kind of game you'll only really learn to appreciate once you've trained your AI comrades to fling you toward a maneater.

Dragons Dogma made the clever choice to ignore Coop multiplayer and instead went for the Pawn system. Here you create an AI-controlled character that learns from your actions and habits in combat but can also be trained in ways to suit your playstyle.

Then you can go online and loan your own Pawn to other Arisen around the globe or rent someone else's Pawn to aid you on your adventures.

These pawns will then advise you on how to slay certain creatures or complete quests. That created this fascinating system where players around the world would help out each other by proxy.

But Dragons Dogma was not without its issues. It was suffering from severe performance issues and jank. Some of these issues would be remedied with ports and and the Dark Arisen Expansion but by then the mainstream had already moved on.

That didn't stop the title from selling over 7 million units in subsequent sales and deep discounts. Which is how the game garnered the reputation it enjoys today. A hidden gem that you can pick up on almost every platform for cheap.

Dragons Dogma 2 Preview

We've only seen a few seconds of gameplay from Dragons Dogma 2 and it's already shaping up to be the greatest game of all time. Half jokingly. Our faith in Itsuno and his team might be misplaced but we're believers.

Everything we've seen in the trailer so far hints that Dragons Dogma 2 will be Dragons Dogma just bigger, bolder, and rendered RE Engine witchcraft.

From the looks of it, the combat system and all 9 vocations will return. It also seems like we're heading back to the first game's setting Gransys. The Pawns are also back and it seems like you can now interact with them beyond giving them a scolding in the inn or throwing them off cliffs.

And after Devil May Cry 5 proved back in 2019 that action games can still deliver the same fluid and responsive controls for the PlayStation 2 era while being presented in cutting-edge graphics, there is no doubt that this philosophy will also be applied in Dragons Dogma 2.

Just think about the insanity a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X can be capable of in the hands of the team that has created some of the greatest 3D action titles of all time.

Dragons Dogma 2 will probably release sometime next year if Capcoms current trend of announcing and releasing games within a year or so is anything to go by. And it'll arrive for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

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