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Dragon's Dogma 2 is almost, almost upon us. The game is coming out in full tomorrow, March 22, but the good news is that all the major review outlets have already spent lots of time playing it. The concensus, then, is already in, and we already know whether this is the slam dunk that everyone's been hoping it would be. Spoiler alert, of course, is that it very much is, with a particularly large caveat for PC gamers. We'll get to that in a bit, though.
In the time interim, as long as you've got a reasonably powerful rig, everything points to Dragon's Dogma 2 being one of 2024's most meaningful and important releases yet. Heck, if you're a fan of open-world RPGs, we don't think anything else on the market hits the same beats as Dragon's Dogma 2 does. If we're being honest, though, that's not enough to go on. Unless you've already played Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, you need a better idea of what this game is and what it is not, and that's precisely what we've prepared for you below!
READ MORE: Make your Arisen and Pawns for Dragon's Dogma 2 before the game is out
Dragon's Dogma 2 Review Overview - All You Need to Know
As ever, our first stop for these matters is OpenCritic, one of the most reliable and widely acclaimed gaming review aggregates. We're big fans of the site, its layout, and its features, and it tells us lots about a given game right off the bat. In the case of Dragon's Dogma 2, the game enjoys a phenomenal 'Mighty' OpenCritic rating, with 87 total reviews making this score a reality. Broadly, 96% of critics recommend Dragon's Dogma 2, and the top-critic average score is a downright unbelievable 89/100! That's a stellar showcase without going into any details.
And, really, not going into any details might be what some of you want. If you do not want any potential spoilers, and if you just want to be able to jump into the game as soon as it's out, check out the discounted Steam key link below and get to it! For those who need a tad more context, scroll ahead.
Score a discounted Steam key for Dragon's Dogma 2 here!
"Dragon's Dogma 2 is the purest version of [emergent gameplay] I've ever seen." - Eurogamer
Eurogamer's Lewis Parker didn't have a preamble before getting right down into the nitty-gritty of Dragon's Dogma 2. "I think I was afraid that my overzealous love for the original might cloud my judgement," Parker said in his review. "Then I blinked, and 10 hours had flown by. It was suddenly 3 a.m. on a Tuesday, and I'd been so engrossed in Dragon's Dogma 2 that I'd regressed back into the gaming schedule of my teenage years. I was now acutely aware of how tired I was, so I told myself I would save at the next available opportunity and go to bed."
Parker was particularly impressed with Dragon's Dogma 2's focus on emergent gameplay over anything else, dishing out his personal experiences with the game's web of interrelated systems throughout the review. He praised the improved story, Vocations, and physics engine upgrades, as well as Dragon's Dogma 2's massively improved open-world compared to Dark Arisen. "As of writing this, I'm roughly 60 hours into Dragon's Dogma 2. 60 hours was more than enough time to complete Dragon's Dogma 2's main story, to max out four of the available vocations, and to explore just over half of the locations on the map, but I'm still fairly certain another 60 hours of playtime lay ahead of me - and that's not even taking a second playthrough into account," Parker explains.
One of his most notable conclusions is bound to reverberate with many of us: "Dragon's Dogma 2 is such a compelling experience going in blind that I am asking, borderline begging, you not to spoil it for yourself." He adds that "Even if I hadn't have played the first Dragon's Dogma, I can tell you with complete certainty that I'd have come to same conclusion I have now, and I'd have given Dragon's Dogma 2 the same score I have now, simply because no other game in recent memory has inspired the same feeling of captivation and wonder in me."
"Dragon's Dogma 2 is an extension of everything the first game achieved 12 years ago." - GameSpot
Richard Wakeling's review of Dragon's Dogma 2 for GameSpot starts on a less immediately thrilling note: "It doesn't do much beyond what the original did, but advancements in technology have enhanced its anomalous strengths, breathing new life into its massive open world and the ways in which you and everything around you can interact with it," Wakeling says. It doesn't take long for his own excitement to work its way through the pores of the text, though: "The open-world genre has become more codified in the interim, yet Dragon's Dogma 2 makes a concerted effort to ensure that the journey is just as important as the destination."
Now, we'll use Wakeling's article to discuss something hugely important for PC players here: the game's performance. Lewis Parker of Eurogamer discussed this as well, and he too felt that this was the biggest issue with Dragon's Dogma 2. "The most noticeable misstep derives from Dragon's Dogma 2's performance on PC," Wakeling writes. "The problem is that this performance is consistent across all visual settings, which leads me to believe it's a matter of poor optimization. I could've used the performance bump from lowering shadow quality and the like, but doing so has no effect. Ideally, this will be rectified with a day-one patch and driver updates, but it's not ideal at the time of writing."
Note that neither Wakeling nor Parker felt that the game's questionable PC performance necessarily detracted from the experience. As Dragon's Dogma 2 is a seemingly extremely CPU-bound piece of software, reaching high frame rates may be out of the question for many gamers. It's good, then, that you can still have a phenomenal time playing!
"Dragon’s Dogma 2 never loses sight of its roots." - GameInformer
According to GameInformer's Jesse Vitelli, Dragon's Dogma 2 successfully kept finding "big and small ways to surprise [him] even 50 hours in." He says "While you’re the center point of the conflict and strife in the world, Dragon's Dogma 2 isn’t afraid to make you feel small. Around every bend, it reminds you that you’re just one part of a larger whole."
Vitelli felt that Dragon's Dogma 2 was remarkably true to the spirit of the original game, and that the technological and gameplay-tangential upgrades Capcom has delivered more than make up for the game's willingness to sticking to the original's gameplay loop. "Dragon’s Dogma 2 captures the spirit of the original without sanding down the edges of what made it excellent. Its insistence on player exploration and discovery, coupled with an ending I will think about for the rest of the year, makes Dragon’s Dogma 2 a standout game and a worthy successor," Vitelli concluded.
Performance issues aside, this is the game to play
So, to summarize, Dragon's Dogma 2 is one of Capcom's finest games ever, bar none. And that's a hell of a bar to clear for a company that produces Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and the like. Obviously, though, PC gamers face a steep performance problem that may or may not be alleviated down the line. The good news is that performance testing is happening as we speak, and even 2Game's editorial team has plans to break down the game's graphics options and potential optimization avenues as soon as possible.
We've got lots of Dragon's Dogma 2 guides slated for release over the coming days. That, combined with our performance analysis, optimization suggestions, and - best of all - a comprehensive suite of PC Steam key discounts make 2Game the place to be. Stick around and have fun!
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