A noob's hands-on preview of Dragon's Dogma 2: A sometimes frustrating experience in a gorgeous, promising open world with enjoyable combat

Remember the iconic Mean Girls quote about a girl having big hair because it's full of secrets?

That's pretty much the experience I got at the hands-on preview session of Dragon's Dogma 2. It's an expansive, beautiful world just waiting for adventurers to plunder its loot and secrets.

The challenge, though, is whether you can find them. And that's when it started to become a frustrating experience of running around like a headless chicken for someone who hasn't played the original or similar game titles.

However, we're getting ahead of ourselves so let's back up to the start.

The preview session was split into two parts, each lasting two hours. For the first session, we were playing as the Mystic Spearhand (a spear-wielding frontliner who blends martial skills with magickal arts). In the second session, we were using the Magick Archer to rain elemental projectiles on our enemies.

Figuring your way out and around without help

So, why frustrating? Well, Dragon's Dogma 2 wants you to figure things out on your own to complete quests, but never does enough to specifically show you how to achieve your objectives.

The first session dropped us in the middle of a small town and immediately, a Pawn called for me to follow him as he was leading us towards the objective of the quest.

The Pawn system makes a return from the first game, AI followers you can summon that will help with combat and pointing out places of interest or treasures. (We'll talk about that later on.)

The quest required us to travel to a town beyond the locked gates to the north. But, in order to pass through the gates, the guard required a travel pass. There was one conveniently sitting in my inventory, but when I attempted to use it, the guard barked at me and turned me away because the travel pass was only usable by a Beastren, a humanoid catlike race.

I attempted to use the pass a couple times - I know, insanity - and it didn't work, obviously. I figured that perhaps, this might be the game's way of telling me to find an alternative solution. After all, the Pawn that was leading me was still standing at the gate - a clear sign that we needed to make our way through.

Looking at my party of Pawns, I saw a Beastren among them and I thought that she might be the solution. But when I tried talking to her, I didn't see an option for her to use the travel pass. I spent about five minutes before I gave up and turned back, heading back out into the wilderness to find some creatures to kill.

It wasn't until the end of the session that I learnt about the existence of a merchant in town who offered a solution to the problem. Although you would never know about it, unless you decided to spend time talking to all the NPCs in the town.

And, that seems to be the principle that has guided the game design for Dragon's Dogma 2, which can be unfamiliar for those who have been spoilt by more recent RPGs that put an exclamation mark on the map and over the head of the exact person you're supposed to talk to, led by a trail of golden breadcrumbs that could rival today's GPS systems.

Talk to every NPC you come across

One quest in the same town had me searching for a boy who had disappeared, but I had to gather clues from the townsfolk.

To be fair, some of the quests do give you hints and mark out a generic area for you to search in. However, that's where the handholding starts and ends.

Unlike what I've been conditioned to expect in other games, where the UI marks out which NPC you need to speak to on your minimap, Dragon's Dogma 2 just really wants you to explore the world and talk to everyone. And even when you do that, the objective can still feel vague to a noob like myself.

Take the missing boy as an example. After speaking to three NPCs, the quest marker was updated and shifted to an area outside of town.

Upon reaching the designated area, the quest didn't provide further updates and the same generic area remained highlighted. I wandered about the surrounding wilderness until dusk settled before I returned to town, not really feeling like the hero I was supposed to be.

The quest had also reverted to its previous state, somehow, and was prompting me to talk to the NPCs again. I talked to the same three, thinking it might change things, but it didn't. It wasn't until I accidentally triggered a conversation - I don't know how - with a guard I walked past, who finally pointed me in the direction of the wolf den the boy was taken to.

As some quests are on a timer, suffice to say, I didn't make it in time. The quest even makes a point of it by showing you a silhouette of a boy, rubbing it in your face before your character remarks that it's just the trick of the light as you find his bloody tattered shirt on the ground.

And while I understand that the game really wants to immerse you in the isekai experience, such quality of life inclusions are sorely needed (at least for players like myself) when the map is so vast, fast travel is restricted based on resources that hard to come by, and you're travelling on foot with your speed limited by your stamina bar.

Exploration in Dragon's Dogma 2 is amazing

Thankfully, Capcom delivered on the exploration aspect - especially since the questing experience wasn't a homerun (for me).

The land stretched as far as the eye could see and I just wandered about trying to see what I could find and what creatures I could hunt. Frankly, the map is so large, I can see players who enjoy sandbox games just taking their time to uncover what the world has to offer. Although, be warned, you'll spend a lot - and I mean, a lot - of time just running about.

However, this isn't a survival game and a vast open world has diminishing returns if players aren't incentivised to explore with an objective.

To my relief, there was something to find around the corners - a pack of mobs, some collectibles, and even a huge Griffin boss. Someone else in the preview session even stumbled upon a dragon.

I mean, Dragon's Dogma 2 is a role-playing game, after all, and randomly stumbling upon stuff is the essence of RPGs. That said, for players like myself, perhaps having minor objectives to head toward, like in more newbie-friendly games, could have enhanced the experience even more.

I felt that exploration also wasn't as much of a drag as it could have been, as I was accompanied by my trusty Pawns, who provided some comic relief while pointing me towards undiscovered secrets.

As Pawns are AI characters that can be hired by players, their knowledge of the world evolves the more they're exposed to things that players do. For example, they might direct you to a chest in a cave that you missed if they've visited that same chest with another player before.

Once their voice prompt triggers - they usually tell you to follow them - you can press the up button on the controller for them to lead the way. This was such a game-changer, and best believe I spammed that button every chance I got.

And, if you discover something that's new to them - say, the location of some rare collectible - they make a comment about informing their next Master about it.

Despite being AI companions, Pawns add some levity to the monotony of traversing the lands. Sometimes, they call you out for picking up everything you find, sometimes they wonder out loud why their former Master only hired female companions, and I genuinely enjoyed having them around.

My appreciation for the Pawns go beyond their wit, though. They are an indispensable asset, especially when it comes to combat.

Due to my lack of skill in action role-playing games - I died quite a bit on the Star Wars Jedi series - the Pawns did most of the killing for me. And, their varied abilities lets you take on mobs that you may not be equipped for.

When I was playing as the Mystic Spearhand, I had trouble getting to the pesky flying creatures while the spellcaster Pawn just floated up and zapped them down for me.

What the combat experience is like in Dragon's Dogma 2

I may be a noob at action combat, but I never felt punished for it in Dragon's Dogma 2, even when I was fumbling with the buttons like a fish out of water. The combat was accessible enough for me to feel like I was doing something, while maintaining a depth that was beyond my reach unless I was being creative.

On the Magick Archer, when I happened to fight a minotaur boss in the narrow tunnel of a mine, I used a ricochet arrow in that tiny space to maximise the numbers of hits from that attack. Alas, the damage seemed negligible, but I was proud of myself for figuring out that strategy.

Both classes also felt fundamentally different from each other, which makes me even more excited to see what the other classes play like.

As a Mystic Spearhand, I was charging through enemies with my handy spear, twirling it with great finesse to dish out continuous damage to those who dare come near me, and when needed, using the Force Magick to toss them away for some breathing space.

Oh, and you hit really hard too.

I was also able to grapple onto a larger foe and climb his back all the way to the nape of his neck and rain attacks on him with reckless abundance. It actually took down huge chunks of his life and it was giving me flashbacks to the old Mortal Kombat days where you cheese a win by spamming leg sweeps.

Hey, if it works and it brings joy, I'm not going to question it. I had lots of fun, not going to lie, and I felt like a badass.

The only thing that didn't quite work for me was fighting as a melee class in enclosed spaces, because the camera angle was so wonky and bad, I couldn't see what I was doing at all. I had no idea if I was even facing the enemy because of all the particle effects, I just swung my weapon and hoped it connected.

The Magick Archer, on the other hand, felt less chaotic (it's a ranged class, duh) and had seemingly lesser damage output on its basic and charged attacks. With various elemental arrows at your disposal, however, it means you have more combat solutions.

The targeting system for the archer was a little iffy, truth be told, because it lacked the traditional reticle. So, if you want to hit an enemy, you got to aim the bow in its general direction and fire as the projectile itself has a homing system.

But, that also means that if you're fighting a pack of enemies, you can't choose which one you want to shoot at. Eventually, I settled into a comfortable pattern of using the homing multi-shot charged attack and the fire arrow (since it's an AoE). If it works, right?

A promising game, but the lack of handholding can be frustrating for newbies

It may sound like I have a big bone to pick with Dragon's Dogma 2, but that's really not the case.

Did I feel frustrated by the lack of quality-of-life inclusions for gamers like me who have been conditioned by modern games? Absolutely, a hundred per cent. I won't be ashamed to admit that I need more handholding.

To begin with, the game isn't intuitive as it subverts expectations of modern RPG games that some of us are used to.

In both sessions, we were just dropped in the middle without any briefing on how to play it. The only reference materials we were given was a set of documents detailing the lore of the town we were at, a rundown of the classes, and the controls.

So, a basic tutorial with tips like talk to every NPC, or where to go if you want to rest and recover health, would have been a lifesaver.

A fellow writer at the preview lost all her Pawns and didn't know where to resummon them. She spent 45 minutes running around the map, dying to almost every combat encounter she came across.

We only figured things out when I opened up the map of the town and swept through every vendor till we found something that mentioned "Pawn" and she found a summoning stone there.

Perhaps time was also the real enemy here, because I needed to maximise my playthrough but the game was hellbent on making me learn how to play it.

Despite that, I really enjoyed everything else I saw, including the in-depth character customisation which I barely scratched the surface of. I attempted to recreate the likeness of Taylor Swift (but failed), although I unintentionally recreated Caduceus Clay (from Critical Role).

There is a promising AAA game here, built with love and attention to detail, and it boasts a fun and dynamic combat system that is accessible to different skill levels.

And don't just take it from me.

The game is not even out yet, and somehow there's already talk of it being the next Game of the Year.

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