The world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 is unpredictable, you can be casually strolling along the riverbank in one moment, and the next moment, you are in an all-out battle against the almighty draconic Drake. It’s like a grand symphony happening on screen, epic orchestral music blaring, your party passionately shouting their war cry, and you delivering a flurry of stylish attacks.

This is only one of the many epic encounters in the vast world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 within the 5 hours of our hands-on experience with the game during our visit to Capcom Singapore’s office.

A World of Wonders

That is the wonder of Dragon’s Dogma 2, a game that promises a fabled open-world adventure but is not going to hold your hands through it all. Despite its vastness, you are asked to journey through the large wilderness by foot, with no quest markers in sight and no barriers stopping your adventure. This works in its favor, having no markers to distract you from exploration and you off with the freedom to forge your own adventure.

You could encounter something as dangerous as the aforementioned Drake, just wandering around the grass field out in the open, or some lowly gang of goblins, or perhaps an ogre ambushing you from a cliff. There are no exclamation marks shouting at you to talk to NPCs and everything is up to your own initiative. NPCs may also approach you or be surrounded by harpies, hoping for a hero to rescue them. All these events make for an organic and dynamic world, where there is always something happening and begging to be explored.

With little information pasted everywhere, the world is also full of mystery for you to unravel yourself.

As mentioned previously, you travel on foot most of the time. There is fast travel, of course, but it is tied to an expensive consumable item. You can also ride the oxcart for slightly faster travel but it is not exactly the safest as ambushes can still happen. Sure, the whole concept was to have Dragon’s Dogma 2’s dynamic world enhance the adventuring experience, but some players may quickly find it tedious and it remains to be seen how much people would appreciate the immersive design over the convenience of teleporting everywhere.

Pawns with PhD 

One of the hallmark features of Dragon’s Dogma would be the Pawns, and the sequel also put a lot of emphasis on them. Pawns are essentially NPCs that can be recruited into your party, acting as your allies in combat. They are not fixed characters, but rather player-created and can be shared or hired through the Riftstone.

This time around, they are given a huge AI upgrade and have more diverse lines. No longer repeating the same few lines and have players meme on them. In fact, they would even banter with one another during your adventure.

Of course, as mentioned, since they can be shared between players, these NPCs could also learn from their adventures in other players’ worlds and provide you with new information such as guiding you to hidden treasure. They are important assets in combat as well, as they fill in roles that cover your weaknesses. Say, you are playing a melee-focused class and having trouble dealing with flying foes, a Pawn with either an Archer or Mage vocation can help support you.

While at most times Dragon’s Dogma does not hold your hand, Pawns with knowledge of certain monsters would shout hints on how to deal with them, making battles chaotic fun as allies scream along with a fantastic soundtrack that captures the sheer epicness of the fight.

Mystic Spearhand and Magick Archer 

Speaking of combat, let’s just say this is undoubtedly one of the greatest highlights of Dragon’s Dogma. As we covered in our previous hands-on preview, Capcom certainly is one of the leads when it comes to crazy satisfying action, and fans of Devil May Cry 5 should expect some good old stylish moves as director Hideaki Itsuno is also behind Dragon’s Dogma 2.

This hands-on is rather different from our previous ones because we got to try out two of the Advanced Vocations in the game for the first time, Mystic Spearhand and Magick Archer. Let’s talk about the Mystic Spearhand first, a newcomer and an extremely cool one at that.

This vocation with the twinblade, apologies, Duospear, is just full of swag, combining highly offensive rushdown style moveset with magic that allows you to use the telekinesis like a Jedi to throw smaller enemies around or teleport above a target. Is not all offensive though, as this class also has some supportive abilities such as conjuring barriers.

Meanwhile, the Magick Archer is a returning vocation and specializes in being the master of projectiles, spamming in magical-infused arrows to enemies, plastering your screen with many fancy glowing darts like a fireworks light show.

Not Monster Hunter

This is not a title that you could simply mash away and gain a victory – positioning and strategizing with your skills and Pawns are important in pushing you ever closing to end the struggle between you and the unforgiving brutal monsters. Big monsters have unique mechanics, multiple phases, and their own resistances and weaknesses. Golem, for example, would be highly resilient in most body parts except the glowing bits. Meanwhile, each of the chimera’s heads does something different, and physical attacks would not harm slimes.

As cool as the blade spins and arrow blasting are, players of modern action RPG may find Dragon’s Dogma 2 uncomfortable to play at the start as unlike other recent titles, dodging, blocking, and parrying is not a universal mechanic but rather a class-specific mechanic. Not every vocation has access to these standard defensive tools, and you may find yourself unable to avoid certain attacks. It takes a lot of time to get used to, but the varied skills do make combat a satisfying treat.

The same could not be said for the camera, unfortunately, as it can feel rather janky especially when cornered or within a crowd of enemies. To make matters worse, a lot of enemies are rather agile so expect flying foes swooping across you or ogre pouncing everywhere, making the camera a mess. A lock-on system would have helped mitigate some annoyance, but there is unfortunately no such feature in the game.

Arisen and Stolen Heart

It was an absolute joy that after 12 years, Dragon’s Dogma finally received a sequel and one that is shaping up to be a promising title that stands out among the sea of open world RPGs. Much like the first game, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is not trying to be like the others, but its own thing.

Moving away from the constant tutorial pop-ups and glaring amount of hints in modern games, Dragon’s Dogma 2 may not be one that players may quickly find comfort in, but there is certainly lots of potential for highly memorable adventures if given enough time. Not having ease of fast travel may be a controversial design choice, but if the game turns out as it promised, then organic and unexpected encounters could be an abundance to spice up the adventure.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is easily one of the most exciting titles in its genre in recent years and a very promising sequel that is what the fans would have hoped for, expanding, polishing, and tweaking what makes the original great while adding more to enhance the experience. It is a game full of wonders and looks to be one of the role-playing fans with its freedom of adventuring.

Much like what the dragon did to the Arisen, Dragon’s Dogma 2 has stolen my heart, and the launch couldn’t come fast enough.

​Dragon’s Dogma 2 is slated to launch on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows PC via Steam on March 22, 2024.