Dragon's Dogma 2 is the best game of 2024, and it's my fault you don't agree

There is truthfully only one game that I’d ever say has been actively enhanced by playing it for work, and that’s Dragon’s Dogma 2

Dragon's Dogma 2 / Capcom

Whenever I tell someone I’m a games journalist, they’ll immediately ask one of a few questions I know well by now. Once I get past the obvious like, “When are you going to move out of my attic?” (hi mom), the one that always strikes me the most is “Does playing games for a living decrease your enjoyment of them as a hobby?”

I always say no when someone asks me, but that’s only because the truth is much more complicated than I’m willing to explain to someone I’ve just met in the pub. It’s part of an attempt on my part to seem like less of a weirdo who overanalyses their own behavior and finds it way too interesting – though, dear reader, I’ll provide you no such courtesy. 

The fact is that while I don’t enjoy gaming any less now, the way that I play games has changed significantly. I was always a completionist to a degree, but now I make a living by guiding every nook and cranny of the most complex games out there, I have to be extra careful when playing through the likes of a massive RPG. I need to know the outcome of every possible choice, I need to coordinate with the rest of the team on what they’ve done so I can do things differently. Quite simply if it’s possible for a player to ask a question about any aspect of the game, I need to know the answer.

Dragon's Dogma 2 / Capcom

To this end, Dragon’s Dogma 2 was an exhausting experience because it’s a game that goes out of its way to tell you as little as possible. Quest markers are vague if they even exist at all, and just about every single quest can end in one of about five different ways, at least half of which involve mechanics you might not even know exist.

If that sounds like a painful and frustrating time to you, then you should never get into games journalism, because I can assure you that getting to play Dragon’s Dogma 2 this way made it the most enjoyable gaming experience of the entire year. I’d even go one step further and say that the disparity between the praise from critics and indifferent shrugs from the general public exists partly because we critics got to play it without guides.

Roughly three weeks before the game was set to launch, five of us at GLHF were playing it and as we do when we have a big RPG that needs lots of guides, we got a group chat together so we can help each other out. For the next few weeks, this group chat became a source of endless joy as we shared clips of the game’s brilliant combat system creating hilarious scenarios; theorized over what the possible solutions were to the game’s weirdest mysteries; and all-round worked as a team to fill in every little gap in our knowledge.

It was a treasure trove of endless discovery. It’s honestly no exaggeration to say that at least two or three times a day someone would pop into that chat with “Hey, did you know you could do this?” and everyone else’s minds would be blown at the discovery. Our quest to solve the Sphinx’s riddles was my favorite, as someone proposed the silliest possible solution to the Riddle of Wisdom only for a quick investigation to prove them right.

Dragon's Dogma 2 / Capcom

Even the simplest quest in that game has endless possibilities. Hunt for the Jadeite Orb is one that will always stick out in my mind because every time we did it we found a new possible way to end the story. The interlinking of two people who both wanted the item, the ability to create a forgery of said item, and the character’s differing abilities to determine if they were given the fake created a network of possibilities that had me analyzing it from every angle.

Meanwhile, when my dad came across that quest, he simply looked up the guide I wrote about it, saw what the best way to make a profit was, and just went and did that, and it left me feeling conflicted. Working these things out and making them easily understandable to other players is my job – it’s the whole point of what I do – and yet I can’t help but feel like in providing him with the easy answer, I’ve robbed him of part of the experience.

Read more: Dragon’s Dogma 2 review: Capcom's unique RPG masterpiece

I can recall every detail of that quest off of the top of my head because I spent a whole day exploring and discovering all the different ways it could turn out, as well as discussing it with my colleagues to see if they found any solutions I didn’t, yet I doubt my dad would be able to tell me a single detail about it if I asked him.

This isn’t to say I’m annoyed at people who use guides – that would be the most hypocritical take possible given the circumstances – but I can’t deny that knowing you have access to online guides dramatically changes how you approach it from first-hand experience.

Dragon's Dogma 2 / Capcom

Had I played DD2 with access to guides, I would’ve enjoyed it less too. That sense of discovery is integral to what I enjoyed so much about this game, but I don’t have infinite patience. If I knew I could get some of these answers with a quick Google search I definitely would’ve resorted to it on more than one occasion, rather than spending a week consulting with four other people trying to solve the Sphinx’s riddles. It’s only through the fact that it was impossible under the pre-launch circumstances that I persevered and found incredible satisfaction in solving the game’s most obtuse mysteries for myself.

That’s without even mentioning the biggest secret of all in that game. The one moment that truly blew my mind in a way no other game ever has before. I simply refuse to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t played it, but all I’ll say is never before has a title card made me that confused and overjoyed at the same time.

This brings me back to that question I mentioned in the beginning – no, not the attic one, mom, stop asking me – because, while I stand by the fact that being a games journalist hasn’t diminished my enjoyment of gaming, there is truthfully only one game that I’d ever say has been actively enhanced by playing it for work, and that’s Dragon’s Dogma 2.