Dragon’s Dogma 2 Looks Great, But No Co-Op Is a Missed Opportunity

wccftech.com:

I have to confess - there are few games that I have been pining for more than Dragon's Dogma 2. I hadn't played the original console release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but when I got my hands on Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen for PC, I loved every minute of my time with the game.

Granted, the action RPG genre is right up my alley. Still, CAPCOM crafted something special with this game, delivering a wonderful take on the D&D-inspired Western fantasy RPG that came with some old-school concepts and amazing combat designed by some of the developers behind the acclaimed action series Devil May Cry.

Its boss fights were truly memorable, as befitting a fantasy action RPG (and a CAPCOM game), though the single most innovative system was probably the Pawn one. In the game, the Arisen main character is prompted to create a so-called Pawn NPC companion at the end of the Call of the Arisen quest. Players can customize pretty much everything about their Main Pawn, from their physical characteristics (gender, height, body type, etc.) to their name, vocation (the class), behaviour, and equipment.

That's just the tip of the iceberg of the Pawn system. On top of the main companion, players can summon another two Hired Pawns, who are the Main Pawns of some other Arisen when the game is connected to the Internet. These NPCs constantly fight alongside the Arisen character, providing the feel of a multiplayer cooperative action RPG thanks to their dynamic AI.

When I first played Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, it was immediately obvious to me that the Pawn system provided the perfect in-universe context for co-op. The game already fully accounted for a party of characters, which seemed like a straightforward stepstone toward proper online