Why is Dragon's Dogma 2 getting review-bombed on Steam?

Dragon’s Dogma 2 has officially been released, but despite very positive critic reviews, the open-world RPG currently sits at an abysmal 39% “Mostly Negative” rating on Steam. Despite the confusion, if we take a look at the reviews we can quickly paint a picture as to why Dragon’s Dogma 2 is getting review-bombed on Steam, and it mostly comes down to three points.

Dragon’s Dogma 2 has some performance issues

First off, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is using Capcom’s RE Engine, and definitely pushes it to its limits. For comparison, the RE Engine has also been used to develop Resident Evil 7, Resident Evil Village, the Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 remakes, as well as Monster Hunter Rise and Street Fighter 6.

While the engine is certainly capable, Dragon’s Dogma 2 features a massive seamless open world without load screens. And, on top of that, there are a ton of NPCs each with their own lives and code strolling through the world at any given time.

We’ve put together a best PC settings for performance guide to help those with performance issues, but if you do not have a modern PC, Dragon’s Dogma 2 may have some big performance issues.

It also uses the controversial Denuvo DRM

According to the Dragon’s Dogma 2 Steam Page, the PC version of the game also utilizes the Denuvo Anti-tamper DRM. The highly controversial DRM is infamous for being rather intrusive and has been known to cause some performance issues.

Several other games have been the victim of review bombing simply due to incorporating Denuvo, so it’s very possible that is the case for Dragon’s Dogma 2 as well.

Some questionable last-minute DRM

Right at release, a handful of microtransactions were added to Dragon’s Dogma 2 including the ability to purchase Rift Crystals, Ferrystones, Appearance modification items, and more. Many players feel these items shouldn’t be purchasable in a single-player $70 game, especially when they are often rare to come by naturally in-game.

These microtransactions weren’t available in the review build of the game, so no one even knew microtransactions would be a part of Dragon’s Dogma 2 until it was released.

These three issues have culminated in a flood of negative reviews and review bombing for the open-world RPG on Steam, which has led to its negative rating.