Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen Review - More Of A Pawn Than A Queen

Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen fixes many technical issues with the base game, but its gameplay additions compromise the series' core vision.

Like the eponymous cyclical conflict, history repeats itself with Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, an expanded and polished version of Capcom's 2024 RPG. Similar circumstances led to the Dark Arisen subtitle being appended to 2012's Dragon's Dogma less than a year later, solidifying its cult classic status and, in turn, prompting fans to spend a decade clamoring for a sequel. Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is now the definitive version of said long-awaited sequel, though not without issues.

In my review of the base game, I lamented that "I desperately want to like Dragon's Dogma 2 more than I already do," and that sentiment only grows more potent with Dark Arisen. By certain empirical metrics, Dark Arisen is bigger and better than the original version—it runs much better on PlayStation 5 and has a significant amount of new, interesting content. But some of its changes undermine the tenets of Dragon's Dogma, removing the friction that makes the series' design so interesting.

An Icy New Adventure For The Arisen

Rumors of a second Arisen and a vision of an imminent cataclysm bring you, the lone Arisen that is supposed to exist by the metaphysical laws governing this world, to a long-abandoned northern realm called Norgan. A lone family's settlement is all that remains of civilization in the frozen, monster-infested mountains, and a discreet cast of characters springs up as the vehicle for what is now DD2's most compelling and focused saga.

It takes place concurrently with the main story of Dragon's Dogma 2, before the world-altering events in the narrative's latter stages plunge the game's setting into its apocalyptic Unmoored World variant. For this reason, endgame saves cannot carry over to Dark Arisen's new content. Per Capcom's recommendation, I launched my original save file into New Game Plus, and was pleasantly surprised to see there is an option to begin playing from Vernworth, the game's first major city, skipping the introductory segment and letting me immediately begin the quest that would take me to Norgan.

For a while, I had a wonderful time acclimating once again to the idiosyncrasies of Dragon's Dogma 2, relying on half-remembered strategies from two years ago. Throughout Dark Arisen's new quests, I explored Vocations (classes) I had only dabbled in or ignored entirely in my original playthrough, and even found that Norgan built on—if only slightly—the attrition system that gives DD2 its adventuring cadence. Every once in a while, a blizzard obscures your mini-map and gradually reduces your maximum stamina until you find a heat source.

There is just enough to make Dark Arisen feel fresh. The new region is quite large; it's not as big as Vermund, but larger than Battahl. Its isolated narrative also carries large enough stakes that it has some preeminence, and it toys with the Dragon's Dogma lore in ways that compelled me to see it through, even as the expansion became mired in questionable gameplay choices.

An Endgame Grind For A Grind-Averse Game

One of the Dragon's Dogma 2 facets I most admire is its focus on making its myriad journeys the centerpiece of gameplay. It combines a handful of systems to make getting from one place to another interesting, and succeeds in doing so despite unfortunately being burdened with tedious inventory management and clunky quest mechanics. Gaining levels and upgrading gear comes gradually in the base game, giving you a steady route to mastery of the harsh environments.

Dark Arisen's new region sadly whittles away at this design philosophy and becomes repetitive as a result. I started Dark Arisen at level 45, with my original playthrough taking me about 42 hours. In roughly 34 additional hours, completing the main Dark Arisen quest line and almost all the new side content, my level more than tripled to 142. Enemies and bosses dish out so much experience that leveling up feels pointless, and I outpaced my two recruited Pawns so quickly that the party felt incoherent as I regularly swapped them out.

Norgan utilizes a brand-new, item-heavy scaling system. As you loot, you acquire relics which can be appraised by a certain NPC, revealing them to be powerful endgame items—armor and weapons with stats well above any available in the base game. These are necessary to fight the powerful new foes in Dark Arisen, but they fundamentally change how Dragon's Dogma 2 plays.

With your new Eternal Ferrystone, which makes fast travel unlimited, and a generous number of Portcrystals (fast travel points), Dark Arisen quickly settles into a routine that eschews the designed drudgery of the base game. Sometimes you'll end up carrying dozens of relics, and you'll regularly warp back to the NPC that can appraise them, sifting through rows and rows of new equipment to find which ones have the most and highest blue numbers, signifying better stats than those of the items you just appraised and equipped 30 minutes ago.

I was changing and maxing out Vocations just to break up the monotony of fighting and fast traveling and appraising and resting and fast traveling again and fighting again. I ended up with well over two million gold and nothing to spend it on. And because New Game Plus in Dragon's Dogma 2 doesn't scale enemies (it's essentially just a way to reset quests and undo the Unmoored World transition), going back to the base-game regions is now a cakewalk.

But Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen's gameplay is far from bad. Some of the new bosses are truly spectacular, and far more memorable than most in the base game. It also helps that climbing up onto a giant monster to stab it repeatedly in the head as it tries to shake you off is still awesome. Norgan's world design is also very different from the game's first two regions, making exploration still fun, even if the systems that surround it have been diluted.

An Expansion For Whom?

Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is ultimately another odd chapter in a series that can't seem to fully find its footing. I suspect there are plenty of DD2 fans who will be able to look past the issues I describe above and be overjoyed that there's simply more game to play—Dark Arisen is even set up to enter a quasi-endless mode after you finish the Norgan story. There will also be newcomers who can safely begin now that we have the complete, polished experience. Some changes are unquestionable improvements, like better performance and multiple save files.

But to some degree, Dark Arisen feels like a capitulation. A limited supply of fast travel items got some flak two years ago, and now that mechanic is gone. A game that metered out equipment as rewards for getting lost in the adventure now coughs it up hand over fist. These changes don't address the base game's real issues; some of the new, brilliant Dark Arisen bosses still become field encounters you face repeatedly, sapping any novelty or gravitas, and inventory management is more grueling than ever.

I wanted to like Dragon's Dogma 2 more than I did, but I can't say the same about Dark Arisen's new content. I just have a twinge of disappointment. What started as an exciting return to an underappreciated series sadly turned into a bit of a slog, with fight after fight starting to feel like little more than button mashing.

"It's admirable that, after so long, the ambitions behind Dragon's Dogma, which couldn't properly be attained in 2012, haven't been compromised," I wrote in 2024. Part of me feels like those ambitions have been compromised in Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen.