Friction feels like the word that best describes Dragon’s Dogma 2, an experience steeped in obtuse systems that revolve around challenging the player’s ingenuity. The game is filled with systems that feel like they work against each other, or intentionally make things inconvenient for the player. These ideas are what make Dragon’s Dogma 2 so special, but also so polarizing. What’s even more impressive, however, is how the game’s design philosophy comes to a head with its astounding post-game. Capcom’s stroke of brilliance is sure to go down as one of the most daring moves an RPG has made in years. Before going on, here’s a warning we’ll be talking about massive spoilers for Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Throughout Dragon’s Dogma 2, you spend dozens of hours learning the lay of the land, piecing together the world’s topography and cave layout. Simultaneously, you’re learning about its world and people, along with the problems that face each major country and settlement. If you put in the legwork and spend time discovering quests you can make meaningful change for each major settlement in the world: you help save the Elves’ sacred tree, you find a new home for the people of Melve, you save Battahl’s high priestess from assassination.
All the lessons you’ve learned about the world and the game’s systems come together in the post game.
Each of these events provides delightful new wrinkles to the world, but the second you set foot on the True Ending path it becomes so much more. This is where quite literally everything you’ve done comes to a head, every choice you’ve made, and every detail you’ve learned.
If you pursue the True Ending you learn about the truth of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s world: it’s caught in an endless cycle where the Arisen destroys The Dragon. It’s a world where everyone is destined to play their own specific role, until your arrival. It’s up to you to break this cycle, and doing so thrusts you into the “Unmoored World,” where chaos reigns and everyone’s fate now lies to chance.
Arriving in the Unmoored World is a massive surprise that opens up nearly a dozen more hours of story, and even comes complete with its own new title screen. But what really makes the post-game section shine is how it encapsulates all of Dragon’s Dogma’s themes, both from a narrative and gameplay standpoint.
Across the world, all of the water has dried up, opening new pathways and areas of exploration. At the same time, though, the world is littered with much more powerful foes, and if you get taken out you have to restart from the beginning of the day, not your most recent save.
The Unmoored World feels dire from just a visual standpoint, and seeing an entire town wiped off the map can be shocking.
After dozens of hours with Dragon’s Dogma 2, you’ve learned how to navigate the world, how to prepare your party for those long trips, and how to combat different enemy types. All of those things you’ve learnt are put to the absolute test in the post-game. You need to use every piece of knowledge you’ve acquired, and furthermore that extends to the story.
In the post-game section, the world is slowly unraveling and being swallowed by a crimson storm. Your main goal is to evacuate every town to the center of the map, the Seafloor Shrine, but if you take too long entire settlements are erased from existence, and all your NPC buddies go with it.
This is where those choices you’ve made come into play, where the effort you put into finding obscure quests and details pays off. For example, if you helped Sven purchase the mysterious box he can convince his mother to evacuate, or if you helped the Elves save their sacred tree, they’ll realize it’s their people, not the land, that’s important. So many things that you thought were just passing details or side quests suddenly become vitally important, and it’s perfect.
At every opportunity, Dragon’s Dogma 2 pounds into your head the idea that everything you do matters. If you aren’t careful, you can fail quests, eliminate NPCs entirely, or find yourself at the mercy of hordes of goblins. It’s astounding how the post-game section challenges you to use those lessons you’ve learned.
The True Ending puts a big emphasis on the relationships your Arisen has forged, making quests that felt innocuous before suddenly vital.
The whole part ramps up the difficulty, not even explaining what you need to do. But if you’ve paid attention in the last 50 hours, you’ll have every single thing you need to tackle it. Open the map and you’ll see that it has drastically changed, deliberately drawing your eye to massive red pillars. Investigate these areas and you’re given huge boss fights or set piece moments that challenge your combat skills, but if you succeed, you can delay the destruction of the storm. Your only direction is to talk to the leaders of each town, but if you’ve painstakingly done all the quests, you know exactly who to talk to, and where they’ll be.
Past the gameplay elements, though, the post-game plays directly into the narrative themes of forging your own destiny, and creating connections with other people to effect meaningful change. Your Arisen may the catalyst to saving the people of the world, but the story makes it clear that you’ve influenced these characters, inspired them to be leaders in their own right.
The post-game in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a celebration of everything the game does, an incredible way to squeeze that extra little bit out of its ambitious themes. Equally incredible is that there’s going to be a large portion of players that probably don’t know it even exists, as you have to know exactly what to do to unlock the True Ending. It’s the perfect way to tie the whole thing up with a bow, and the moment that elevates Dragon’s Dogma 2 from a great game to something that’ll be remembered for the next decade.
