The Platonic Ideal of Fantasy Adventure

Less than an hour into Dragon’s Dogma 2, I lost my life to a beast that has haunted imaginations for millenia. While walking a mountain pass of spectacular views, my interest was piqued by a towering waterfall bathed in misty spray. Behind it was a cave, and so with the misplaced bravado of a fledgling adventurer, I ventured inside, only to discover a den of ferocious chimera. Sword drawn, I barely made a dent in its screenwide health bar before I was flung into dark wet rock, falling to the cave floor with a deadening thud.

This sensation is one you’ll grow accustomed to throughout Dragon’s Dogma 2: humbling and oftentimes swift defeat, yes, tempered by the tantalizing promise of adventure. The sequel to the 2012 original, and brainchild of director Hideaki Itsuno, rewards exploration of an undulating, open-world landscape more than any other since the landmark Elden Ring. Its quintessential fantasy setting is plotted with criss-crossing tracks, shady woodland groves, long sandy beaches, and, of course, dank caves, within which untold surprises reside — some deadly, others friendlier. Despite having my ass handed to me in the first hour, I plowed on resolutely with a philosophy of letting curiosity rather than a waypoint dictate my direction of travel. Thirty hours in, the game continued to offer handsome rewards for venturing off the beaten path of wanderers gone by, and not just with XP or a handful of coin. Rather, the moments of irreplicable wonder and discovery kept on coming, all the more profound because the game afforded me the space to find them on my own.

If you’re used to the sleek, almost frictionless open-world adventuring of Ubisoft franchises like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry, then Dragon’s Dogma 2 might feel a touch unwieldy, clunky even. It has a distinct tempo that pivots on the passing of in-game time. When night comes, the world goes dark — very dark — and you can illuminate it only a little with the lantern dangling from your waist. Because foes are more numerous and dangerous at this time, you’ll want to do most of your questing during the day. So you get a decent sleep at the local inn; do a few preparations, like cramming as many health potions (here called Salubrious Delight) into your pack as possible; and set out on the road after breakfast with the best intentions of returning before supper.

The open world you’re confronted with isn’t as freeform as that of recent Zelda games or the aforementioned Elden Ring. The paths you traverse are frequently hemmed in by rock; water is deadly (not because you can’t swim but because Cthulian monsters lurk in it). These physical impositions let the designers deftly direct your eye to sights that have long lived rent free in the imaginations of fantasy-fiction fans. During one journey through a precipitous gorge, my gaze was drawn up from the dusty road to a series of beautifully sculpted stone bridges, glinting in the yellow sun, inspiring something like nostalgia, albeit for a place I’d never visited. While making my way across the ramparts of a ruinous castle, I looked down at an altogether bloodier but no less evocative scene: a dragon and troll tearing lumps of red flesh from one another.

That’s another crucial aspect of Dragon’s Dogma 2. Enemies and NPCs don’t follow predetermined scripts but react to what’s happening around them, often independently of your input. Although you inhabit the role of the Arisen, a chosen one who has had their heart ripped out by a dragon (the game’s ultimate foe), the world does not begin or end with you. You’re not the only one who causes it to crackle into life — it can do that of its own accord.

The weirdest part of the game, and the mechanic from which it derives a great deal of its quirky personality, is the “pawn” system. Put simply, immediately after creating your character (all the way down to customisable teeth), you make another humanoid being committed to aiding your dragonslaying efforts. The wrinkle is that you’re able to recruit two additional pawns — those made by developer Capcom or by other players — to form a party of four. These characters chatter away, they guide you on quests, and you’ll likely grow attached before dismissing them uncaringly if a better one comes along. You may also bump into these pawns on the road at a later date, which can be an oddly joyful experience. It’s a reminder that, as much as this is a game about exploration and brilliant, bruising action, it’s also one of relationships — and these are anchors in its otherwise hostile world.

When all of these constituent parts lock into the place, there’s little else like Dragon’s Dogma 2. For all the verisimilitude of its open-world wilderness, this is a game that plays like an ornately machined toy, a clockwork set of rules and systems all in feedback with one another, all reinforcing the core promise of adventure.

During another memorable session, I was tasked with killing a group of monsters. I crept into their lair in the morning, yet by the time I reemerged, the day had turned to dusk. The journey back was fraught and anxious, characterized mostly by the hysterical slashing of my sword in the growing darkness. But as I neared my destination, the black silhouette of the city walls visible against the last embers of the sun, my heart rate slowed. I took a moment to listen to the quiet hum of cicadas, at which point one of my pawns remarked with an unnerving sense of occasion: “The sky is radiant tonight. I feel at peace to gaze upon it.” For this evening, at least, all was right in the world of Dragon’s Dogma 2.

This quest equated to approximately 45 minutes of play, but the game frequently inspires a rich palette of emotions — confidence, excitement, tension, relief — in ways that can feel utterly uncanny in their intensity. (You’d better believe those endorphins are flowing every time I see the warm glow of an inn.) Through the most unconventional of designs, Dragon’s Dogma 2 offers something close to the Platonic ideal of a fantasy adventure. Give yourself over to its rhythms — the ebb and flow of its circadian cycles; the cadence of its blistering combat; the contours of a land filled with the most wondrous and terrifying secrets.