Dragon’s Dogma 2 is, to put it mildly, an atypical RPG. To put it less mildly, Capcom was well and truly off its rocker and on a bender with this one. Exhibit A: the Unmaking Arrow, an arrow so powerful that, per its hilariously blunt in-game description, it auto-saves the game when fired, “so choose your moment with due care.” Dragon’s Dogma 2’s approach to game design – friction-first, rule-breaking, and seriously unserious – has sparked some division but ultimately earned the game critical acclaim, and the Unmaking Arrow in particular has been lauded by many veteran game developers.
Scott Benson of Night in the Woods fame put a spotlight on the Unmaking Arrow on Twitter, giving a “shout out to whoever on the design team was like, ‘ok before you react let me finish'” and calling the arrow and its quirky description “just fantastic.”
shout out to whoever on the design team was like ok before you react let me finish pic.twitter.com/ER1Mj3wLIqMarch 27, 2024
Benson’s tweet was quickly picked up by other game devs, their gobs smacked and gasts flabbered. “This is game design, to me,” said Jason Grinblat of legendary roguelike Caves of Qud. “Incredible. Flawless,” added Rami Ismail of Nuclear Throne and Luftrausers studio Vlambeer. “The designer I’m not brave enough to be,” said Scott Bradford, lead narrative designer on Skate (which you may know as Skate 4).
Arkane Lyon studio director Dinga Bakaba, perhaps best known as creative director on Deathloop and now for heading up Marvel’s Blade, drilled a bit deeper.
“This might be the funniest game design candy I’ve seen in a AAA video game in a long time,” Bakaba said. “The display of ingenuity to commit to the bit making the item special by effortlessly breaking ‘proper UX’ rules coupled with the earnest explanation to bring the player along is brilliant!”
In a follow-up reply, Bakaba explored the rules that Dragon’s Dogma 2 proudly tears to shreds for a gag: “Never autosaving when you aren’t sure that the player is ‘safe.’ We do a lot of effort code-wise to ensure this rarely happens to not ruin your saves. And in this case you have only two saves (autosave and last inn sleep) so it’s even more dramatic a move. It is also breaking a soft rule for that game where the text for items is used for function description, not tutorialization.”
The best part of all this is that this is not the first time Dragon’s Dogma pulled this crap. The original RPG had a similar arrow called the Maker’s Finger, capable of instantly killing any creature born of The Maker, the ascended guardian of the world. I don’t remember it auto-saving upon use, though, so Dragon’s Dogma 2 actually upped the ante on instant death in a way that could easily turn any encounter, or perhaps your entire playthrough, into a clown fiesta – or kill a seagull, your choice. You’ve just got to respect that kind of commitment to chaos.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 “anti-Briners” dismiss the RPG’s Dragonsplague as a hoax, insist Pawns with red eyes are actually “fine.”
