Dragon's Dogma 2 Feels Like a Remake of the First Game, in a Good Way | Push Square

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Dragon's Dogma 2 sticks with the Dark Arisen template to a pleasant but almost surprising degree. Sequels often walk a fine balancing act as significant departures can alienate existing fans, whereas repeating the established gameplay often feels too safe. Capcom's anticipated sequel easily falls into the latter category but when the original action RPG still feels refreshingly original, we'd argue that's not a bad thing. Following a recent preview, we're excited to see more.

Going hands-on for an hour at Capcom's UK office, we played the same exhibition demo recently presented at the Tokyo Game Show. Character creation wasn't showcased and we could only select three preset builds using the Arisen's starting vocations — a story-focused segment with a level 5 Archer, or hunts for larger threats as either a level 15 Thief or Fighter. The 4th starting class, Mage, was unavailable, so we selected Archer.

We were immediately struck by how similarly Dragon's Dogma 2 compares to its predecessor. Even with a new map split across two nations — Vermund and Bhattal — the demo's starting base looks just like The Encampment. A two-generation gap provides a huge visual leap from the rough PS3-era visuals, which admittedly falls behind other recent RPGs like Final Fantasy XVI, but still adds considerable character to these lovely environments.

Our time was spent exploring Vermund, encountering a village recently wrecked by the dragon. Even without watching the game's introduction, several cutscenes set the tone well and we soon hit the road. We had hoped to test how reactive NPCs are since the original game notably lets you steal directly in front of them without consequence. However, we couldn't find anything to test this with, only