Dragon’s Dogma 2, the follow-up to 2012’s action-RPG gets a good showing at Capcom’s Tokyo Game Show 2023 broadcast. There’s a 9-minute segment featuring new gameplay, with an explainer by game director Hideaki Itsuno.
The first thing to be confirmed is the name of the non-human race new to this entry: the beastren. The Arisen, the playable character, can be either human or beastren.
Two different locations have been revealed: The lush plains of Vermund, where the “Arisen rules as king” (or a monarch, since the Arisen isn’t necessarily male) and the nation of bestren, Battahl, featuring a canyons and differing cultures to the human nation.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 Vocations
Dragon’s Dogma 2 also revealed a few vocations, this game’s term for classes. This time around, you have four starter vocations instead of three: Fighter, Mage, Archer and Thief. The Strider vocation, the “rogue” class in typical western-based RPGs, have been effectively split into two.
Fighters fight with a sword and shield, dealing strong attacks and can aggro enemies and withstand attacks with its sheild.
Archers use a bows and arrows for long-range attacks. This time around, there’s freeform third-person-shooter-style aiming available.
Thieves dual wield a pair of daggers, moving fast with quick strikes. They can sink the daggers into larger enemies and climb on them (not sure if it’s a universal feature like the last game, or a vocation-specific ability now). And yes, they can also steal items from enemies and NPCs.
Mages launch magick attacks, with more powerful magicks taking having longer incantation time.
Two advanced vocations were also revealed. Like previously, these a hybrid combo of the basic vocations, and exclusive to the Arisen.
Magick Archer returns, a hybrid of Archer and Mage. They have access to magickal arrows, can attack as well as heal, and powerful AOE attacks that can be casted at the cost of max HP.
Mystic Spearhand is a hybrid of Fighter and Mage. Unlike the Mystic Knight vocation from the original game, Mystic Spearhand gets access to a unique weapon, the Duospear. They have access to attacks with wide arcs, can close in the gap with magick, and can even hurl objects. Use a dead body of a fallen enemy as a projectile attack on a another soon-to-be-dead enemy.
Other Dragon’s Dogma 2 Details
The Dragon’s Dogma 2 showcase also revealed some returning mechanics.
The Pawn system, AI companions, is back and should be functionally the same as Dragon’s Dogma. You can customise one Pawn, and can summon two more to be part of a party of four. The game is single-player only, but you can recruit the two other Pawns created by other players.
Over time, Pawns will gain experience in adventuring, behaving differently. Including your own Pawn, who may be adventuring elsewhere with other players and returning back with more experience. In the gameplay presentation, a Pawn offers to show you the path on a particular quest they are familiar of.
Also similar to Dragon’s Dogma is inhabitants of the world having their own lives. So depending on the time of day, these folks will be some other place in town.
Travelling the world at night is more dangerous, as it gets real dark outside with unique monsters appearing. You can rest a campsites, which is new.
Also new is travelling by oxcarts, used to travel between major points of interest. You can doze off to quickly arrive to the destination which means fast travel is going to be limited again. For context, the original Dragon’s Dogma release have limited fast travel, requiring a special item (Ferrystone) and can be used to teleport to specific locations only, unless you have another specific item.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 has no release date yet, but it’s coming to PS5, PC (Steam) and Xbox Series X|S.