The original Dragon’s Dogma arrived at a dark time in Capcom history
Nearly 12 years after game director Hideaki Itsuno released Dragon’s Dogma on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is finally almost here. Since the original game debuted, Capcom has released Dragon’s Dogma spinoffs, semi-sequels, and ports to varying degrees of success, but the highly anticipated sequel looks poised to break out.
Publisher and developer Capcom has been on a hit streak lately, thanks to investing in strong franchises like Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, and Street Fighter. However, the company’s fortunes weren’t so favorable in 2012 when Dragon’s Dogma debuted. Back then, Capcom was experimenting and often failing, either critically or commercially, to find global success.
Dragon’s Dogma landed amid a year of big swings and misses for the company. The Resident Evil franchise was at one of its lowest points with multiple poorly received releases that year, including Resident Evil 6, which critics called “a franchise-diminishing disappointment,” and Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City, blasted as “an insult to Resident Evil fans.” Only Resident Evil: Revelations, a 3DS-only side story that stuck to the survival horror core, kept the franchise relevant that year.
Capcom seemed confused about what to do with its rich vein of properties in 2012 in particular. It’s the same year that it worked with FromSoftware to deliver Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor, an abysmal, Xbox 360 Kinect-only spinoff of its hardcore mech action franchise — you know, the one famous for its dedicated 44-input controller — and reimagined the Lost Planet franchise as a manga-inspired shooter with EX Troopers, a deviation from the serious sci-fi presentation of the previous games.
The company’s identity crisis extended to many of its oldest franchises, including releasing a social mobile game based on Mega Man and going crossover-crazy with Project X Zone, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright, and Street Fighter X Tekken. The latter, in particular, was a commercial misfire
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