Dragon’s Dogma 2 gets release date, new gameplay details from Capcom

Capcom shows off new monsters and a new vocation

• By
  
  Michael McWhertor
  
• on November 28, 2023 4:43 pm

Dragon’s Dogma 2 will be released on March 22, 2024, reviving Capcom’s sword and sorcery action-RPG franchise after a decade-long break. Capcom revealed the release date and new gameplay details during a digital showcase on Tuesday.

Hideaki Itsuno, director of Dragon’s Dogma 2, and Yoshiaki Hirabayashi, the game’s producer, showed off new features coming in the sequel. That includes a huge new addition to the bestiary, the Talos, a massive brass warrior who emerges from the sea. Developers showed varying approaches to taking the Talos down: by leaping onto it from a cliff’s edge, and fighting it while holding on for dear life, à la Shadow of the Colossus; riding birds toward the Talos to close the distance to it; and attacking it from afar using ranged weapons and spells.

Capcom also showed off a new vocation, the Trickster. That Arisen-only character class can use a censer in battle to conjure illusions, causing enemies to fight each other, and to support a player’s pawns to make them more effective in battle. The Trickster, a “devious vocation,” can manipulate the battle from the sidelines rather than fight directly.

The Trickster joins Dragon’s Dogma 2’s previously confirmed vocations: Fighter, Archer, Thief, Mage, Magick Archer, and Mystic Spearhand.

Capcom also showed off its update character creator, which players can use to customize their Arisen and main Pawn. The developer is using new photogrammetry technology to increase the photorealism of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s player-created avatars, developers said.

Finally, developers also teased a bit of the game’s story, which they said was set in a world parallel to that of the original Dragon’s Dogma. As an Arisen, players will find themselves caught between the beliefs and plots of two rival nations. Vermund, the human kingdom, is at the center of a power struggle for the throne, with a false Arisen installed by the queen regent Disa. In Battahl, the humanoid beasts there treat Pawns as a source of misfortune. But both nations view dragons as a threat to their survival.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is coming to PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The original Dragon’s Dogma was released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012, followed by the expansion Dark Arisen the next year.

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