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

Dragon's Dogma 2 might look like action RPGs you've played, but it's bold, different, and breathtaking

I get a new quest, I fast travel to the nearest possible location, jog on over with infinite stamina, and then skillfully dance and spin around a griffon as my swords rotate in my hands like a vortex of pain, taking down the monster before I break a sweat. That’s the open world RPG expectation, the kind that games like The Witcher 3 manage to fulfill handily – and Dragon’s Dogma 2, on the surface, looks like it’ll fill that same adventurous void. It’s a third-person action RPG with a bunch of big monsters to slay, after all – and then you leave your first town, only to get besieged by a towering cyclops, or have a griffon crash down from the sky, destroying your oxcart and demanding satisfaction. Even if your natural talent is a cut above the rest, there’s every chance that a roaming harpy might grab you by the shoulders and drop you off a cliff. Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t like other open world RPGs. This isn’t a casual jaunt through the woods while cutting up a few goblins: this is a constant fight for survival. Even cities aren’t safe, as my colleague who got besieged by a dragon can attest.

Every time you decide to pursue a quest in Dragon’s Dogma 2, you must prepare. It’s like Monster Hunter in that sense – leave the base without eating food and prepping supplies for the battle ahead, and you’ve probably already lost. DD2 requires you make sure you’re not carrying too much – herbs and trinkets add up, eventually impacting the rate at which your stamina refills and depletes, in addition to your movement speed – you need to make sure you’re well-rested to refill your loss gauge (a health decrease that can only be removed by resting), ensure your equipment is upgraded, curatives are restocked, vocations are optimized, and that you have the right pawns (NPC allies, recruited from other players) for the job. You can prepare as much as you want, and sometimes, against certain enemies, that still won’t be enough.

But that’s exactly why this preparation routine feels so satisfying. After a handful of hours with DD2, you will learn – the hard way – what it’s like to get caught off guard. Enemies that you should be able to take down will catch you by surprise, tearing your health bar apart, and catching you in a stun-lock combo before your pawns can save your butt. Then you prep, change up your vocation, ensure you have the right pawns for the job, and suddenly, victory is yours. So long as an even bigger, nastier foe doesn’t ambush you on the way.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is going to be one of the biggest games of 2024

Dragon’s Dogma 2 feels unpredictable – at least once I tried to leave the main hub city of Vernworth to go questing, only to find a Minotaur miniboss tearing through the guards at the front gate, and other players told me they were ambushed in the same way by a hulking drake that killed NPCs necessary for quests. You can’t prepare for everything, it feels impossible, but eventually, it will all click. You’ll understand what you’re preparing for, what risks you might encounter on the road, and how to take out each one.

The world of Dragon's Dogma feels bigger than it actually is / Capcom

Traveling from town to town feels like a genuine adventure each and every time. I’ve said before that games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Death Stranding are more about the journey than the destination, and that’s true in Dragon’s Dogma 2, too. You do eventually unlock oxcarts to fast travel to and from a select few towns and locations – as long as that oxcart isn’t besieged by monsters that destroy it along the way – but even that has its limitations. Luckily you can travel between Portcrystals you either find or place in the world, but that requires the use of a Ferrystone, a limited consumable. You will eventually get access to more Portcrystals and Ferrystones, but not before you traverse the entire world.

Having to march yourself and your squad of pawns between every location might sound like a hassle, but it’s actually brilliant. Sure, there are plenty of treasures and items to find while exploring the world, but there are even more monsters. When you first start the game, a bad monster encounter might have you turn around and head straight back to the hub city, but over time your mastery of the combat will have you tearing through the hordes that wander the roads. And that combat is, frankly, brilliant.

Different vocations have different weapons with entirely new playstyles / Capcom

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is an action RPG, sure, but that definition often emphasizes the RPG, while including token action. DD2 feels more like a character action game when in combat – like Bayonetta or Devil May Cry – with each of the game’s vocations acting as a different “character” to control. Each vocation only gets access to one weapon type (with one exception), and that leads to radically different approaches to combat with each.

The Warrior can boost health and defense to stay on the frontlines, constantly unleashing huge sweeping attacks. The Thief is nimble, with swift dodges and attacks that keep them mobile at all times. Mages take on a support role, while Sorcerors are optimized for damage output and massive spells. Mystic Spearman might’ve ended up being my favorite, with some excellent mobility that can even be used for exploration, as well as chunky damage output for the bigger baddies.

Get used to sprinting places / Capcom

And those baddies really do get big. While most of your time in combat will be spent on the ground taking out groups of smaller foes, massive monsters will emerge from the woods regularly, and if they see you, they won’t hesitate to attack. Luckily they’re worth a good chunk of XP and often carry precious materials, so once you become confident enough to fight them, it feels like the dynamic shifts from you being the prey to becoming the predator.

Because of their size, there’s a Shadow of the Colossus-style climbing mechanic still present from the first game, which will be necessary if you want to hit weakpoints and deal huge damage. Tactically circling a flying foe before leaping and grabbing onto its tail, climbing, and taking it down to the ground with a stab to the head is a beautiful experience, perfectly balancing risk and reward. Sure, you just might die if your stamina depletes and you slip off a creature from high up, but you also might score one of the coolest kills of all time.

Even fearsome monsters get taken down once you're experienced enough / Capcom

Quests are almost as open-ended as combat, even if there aren’t quite as many as you might expect from a several-dozen-hour open world RPG. Many quests will come to a screeching halt if you make the wrong decision, or someone dies along the way – but perhaps you can solve a quest simply by grabbing someone and dragging them to a certain location, or perhaps you’ve been reading in-game literature and have picked up the location of something you were supposed to find. Sometimes even your pawns will have quest information from a different world, and you can have them guide you to the right place – pawns do not mind sprinting across the entire game world to lead you where you need to be.

Pawns are one of the most interesting aspects of Dragon’s Dogma 2. You’ll get a main pawn which you can design yourself, but you’ll also have an extra two hired pawns at all times, which can be either Capcom’s own pawn designs or those from players online. During my playthrough a few pawns from online players became regular party members, while other reviewers reached out to me to tell me what my pawn had accomplished in their game.

Ah yes, Sephiroth 2, I encountered him many times / Capcom

It’s a simple mechanic on the face of it, but it means that each pawn almost feels like a friend of a friend, giving you tidbits and advice from their own journey that you can use in yours. Despite not actually having multiplayer functionality, Dragon’s Dogma 2 manages to feel like one of the most communal RPGs in recent memory. The information pawns share with you is reminiscent of the messages Dark Souls players leave on the ground, personified, only with fewer lies and genital jokes.

In spite of its ambition, all of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s mechanics come together beautifully. The way combat works, the way you can coordinate with pawns for team strategies, the threat level of the world at large, the way quests gently nudge you to explore each corner of the map – there’s no fat here. Despite the the game feeling huge, and a simple journey from town to town potentially taking a good deal of time, it somehow feels streamlined. Everything slots together so neatly, it’s genuinely shocking.

Dragon's Dogma has some distinct and beautiful environments / Capcom

Dragon’s Dogma 2 starts out with the same level of mystique and overwhelming scope that Elden Ring hits you with, but once you understand how this world functions, you become a master of it. It’s daunting, sure, but after you overcome that initial hurdle, it’s incredible. I adored tearing through goblins, shooting ballistae at drakes, clinging to flying dragons, and changing the very fate of the world as the Arisen. Dragon’s Dogma 2 is easily the best action RPG of 2024 so far – and is very unlikely to be dethroned – and manages to go toe-to-toe with FromSoftware’s magnum opus in terms of how impactful and absorbing exploring the world feels. This is what Dragon’s Dogma was always meant to be, and it’s a masterpiece.

Score: 10/10

Version tested: PS5

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