With embargoes lifted and reviews rolling in for Dragon's Dogma 2, I'm willing to say it: after more than a decade since the original game's release, Dragon's Dogma sickos are finally vindicated. We're poised to enter an era where we're regularly regaled by our friends' tales of their Arisen's latest, delightfully-sidetracked quests alongside a gang of misfit pawns. Even if Dragon's Dogma 2 follows its predecessor as a cult classic, it looks like it'll be a much bigger cult.
After shotgunning a healthy hundred hours of adventure alongside his hand-sculpted goblin sidekick, Fraser Brown leads our own Dragon's Dogma 2 review with a bold declaration: «I guarantee this is a game that will be talked about for a long time.» Well, critics are already getting a strong start on the talking. Currently sitting with an admirable 87 on Metacritic, Dragon's Dogma 2 looks fit to follow Baldur's Gate 3 as a landmark fantasy RPG—assuming you can stomach some eminent jankiness.
Eurogamer: 5/5
I mentioned Dragon's Dogma sickos above, and Lewis Parker at Eurogamer seems to be a sicko among sickos, writing that, after an introductory binge of Dragon's Dogma 2, «I realised attempting to be unbiased may no longer be possible, because Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't bothered about appeasing those who had issues with the original game.»
Encapsulating the emergent magic on offer, Parker includes a retelling of a prolonged saga that began with escorting a merchant, who was fatally bludgeoned moments later by an ogre, who was then killed a griffin, which was in turn killed by a speeding oxcart (that also collided with Parker and company), whose driver would then go on to give their life in a battle after ferrying Parker to the nearest village which, by coincidence, was in the midst of a dragon attack. Excellent. No notes.
IGN: 8/10
IGN's Jarrett Green points to Dragon's Dogma 2's «second-to-none action design and vague but robust and alluring world» as its greatest strengths, but those strengths