Dragon's Dogma 2 comes with 21 DLCs, including fast travel and character editing functionality

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a delightful ARPG, that much we know for sure. Leaning heavily on its legacy and novel, cutting-edge technology and immersive worldbuilding, this game will be the talk of the town in 2024, but its official release brought with it an issue: a remarkable number of microtransactions.

The problem is so prevalent, in fact, that Dragon’s Dogma 2 – which enjoyed stellar critique and came highly recommended according to OpenCritic – came out to a ‘Mostly Negative’ review rating on Steam. It’s not difficult to see why, either, with over twenty different microtransaction options to choose from. Some of these are garden-variety DLC goodies, such as assorted camping gear and minuscule equipable items, but other examples include a token that lets you change your character’s appearance and, worse, a bonus Portcrystal, which functions as an extra fast-travel point. Obviously, this seems like a huge point of contention for what is, in effect, a totally single-player sandbox RPG, but franchise veterans likely know that this is part and parcel for Dragon’s Dogma. For Capcom, too, for that matter.

What I mean by this is that this move is neither totally unprecedented nor is it as big of a problem as it appears at face value. Indeed, it’s understandable that seeing all of these DLCs on day one of a $70 single-player game’s release may leave a bad taste, but it’s worth considering the situation from a more objective point of view, too.

Notably, Capcom is known for its penchant for showing virtually useless microtransactions into games that have absolutely no need of them. Prominent examples include Devil May Cry 5 and all of the recent Resident Evil games, and none of these examples have been problematic due to Capcom’s questionable handling of DLC. Monster Hunter games are closer to the current situation with Dragon’s Dogma 2, where players can purchase character edit tokens and whatnot, but this leads us to another important consideration: the highlighted DLCs are fully optional.

Not in the sense that players just shouldn’t buy them if they’re incensed by their existence: the character edit token, for one, is reportedly unnecessary as soon as you reach the first major settlement in Dragon’s Dogma 2, as the game does allow you to change your character’s looks without spending additional money. The option is simply not obvious right out of the gate, and Capcom is more than happy to charge for it by default.

So, it doesn’t seem that the excessive micro-monetization of Dragon’s Dogma 2 is necessarily going to ruin the playing experience. On the flip side, it’s not hard to understand why seeing over $40’s worth of DLC could give someone whiplash.

It will take a bit for the dust to settle down and for the hard facts to emerge as to whether Capcom is just doing what it usually does with superfluous DLC in flagship titles, but for the time being, the game’s problematic performance is a more pressing problem. Or, perhaps, the fact that there’s no way to start an all-new game with an all-new character at this time. Curious stuff, that.