Dragon's Dogma 2 Players Are Freaking Out Over a Mysterious Plague That Turns Pawns Murderous

ign.com:

Has your Dragon's Dogma 2 Pawn been suffering from headaches lately? Do they seem more confused than usual? Not following orders? Saying things that don't make sense? What about going on murderous rampages and killing off entire cities' worth of NPCs?

If so, your Pawn might have an actual in-game disease known as Dragonsplague, and the only way to get rid of it might be to either dismiss them, or in worst-case scenarios, drown them.

Warning: I'm going to spoil a newly-discovered in-game mechanic for Dragon's Dogma 2 in this article. We won't be covering any story spoilers, but if you enjoy going in knowing nothing, it's probably best to skip this one.

In Dragon's Dogma 2, you are the Arisen, a powerful individual with a specific destiny that involves, among other things, invoking total loyalty and obedience from a group of individuals known as Pawns. Pawns are a strange group of people with the ability to travel between different dimensions (aka, different players' games) via something known as the Rift, and they obey the Arisen in each world unquestioningly. As a result, a typical playthrough of Dragon's Dogma 2 involves you forming an adventuring party by creating one Pawn that will be yours through the whole game, and hiring other Pawns to your party that were made by other players and sent out into the Rift.

However, Dragon's Dogma 2 players have come across something weird about certain Pawns. Pawns seem to be able to contract and spread a disease called Dragonsplague. In its early stages, players are reporting that their Pawns will sometimes speak incoherently, disobey orders, and have strangely glowing red eyes. There's no way to tell if a Pawn has Dragonsplague while in the Rift before hiring them, but once they are hired, the signs start to become apparent. If left unchecked, then eventually resting at an inn will trigger a cutscene where the Pawn in question transforms into a shadowy dragon and nukes an entire city, which can include killing off