Dragon’s Dogma 2 Steam reviews are off to a rough start despite a huge player count and big sales for the new Capcom RPG. The long-awaited follow-up to a cult classic that grew its audience slowly through word of mouth, the arrival of Dragon’s Dogma 2 was set to be a landmark moment for the returning series, to rival the likes of Elden Ring and Capcom’s own Monster Hunter World. Yet, despite generally positive critical reviews and a jump to the top of the Valve best-selling charts, the player response on Steam has been markedly downbeat.
At the time of writing, Dragon’s Dogma 2 sits at a ‘mixed’ 40% Steam review score, having received more than 7,000 user reviews. The most common complaints mentioned by those who have submitted reviews are poor performance and optimization, along with the ability to buy some in-game items with real-world money microtransactions. Of course, it’s important to note that the players who are having a good time with the new RPG game are likely still playing it rather than stopping to write a review, but such an outpouring of negativity is certainly noteworthy.
Our own Dragon’s Dogma 2 review notes that while there’s certainly a lot to love about its commitment to the idiosyncratic design of the original, the only member of our team not to experience framerate issues is running the game on a top-end Nvidia RTX 4090, something most players won’t own. We also “spent a frankly exhausting amount of time in the system settings menu in an attempt to fix visual textures smeared with Vaseline, polygonal shadows, and miasmic reflections with varying degrees of success.”
The other recurring complaint is the existence of microtransactions for basic items and features despite the game’s $69.99/£53.98 price tag. You can, for example, spend $1.99/£1.70 on an item to change appearance in Dragon’s Dogma 2. You don’t need to spend real money to do this, however. These items can also be bought in-game using the Rift Crystals earned by defeating powerful enemies or hiring your Pawn out to other players (although you can additionally buy more RC with real money if you so choose).
While the initial Steam reviews have been far from what Capcom would have hoped for, the game’s sales are looking good. In just its first day, Dragon’s Dogma 2 has already topped the Valve charts for global Steam top sellers by revenue, and its player count reached a peak of 184,724 exploring the Dragon’s Dogma 2 map on the first day – not quite the 240,872 high that Monster Hunter: World managed day one, but impressive numbers for a single-player game where there’s likely less pressure for players to jump in on launch day.
In the meantime, if you are planning to jump in for yourself, you’ll want to check in with the Dragon’s Dogma 2 system requirements first to see how your machine matches up. We’ve also put our collective experiences together to determine the best Dragon’s Dogma 2 settings for max fps and optimal performance. Hopefully over time Capcom will iron out these issues with additional patches, so people can enjoy the game on its own merits.
Update – March 22: Capcom has shared a message to Steam addressing the issues. It says the frame rate issues are in part due to a “large amount of CPU usage allocated to each character,” meaning that in situations with many characters on-screen “settings that reduce GPU load may currently hae a limited effect.” It adds that the team is “looking into ways to improve performance in the future.”
Just getting started? You’ll want to learn about all Dragon’s Dogma 2 vocations for all the classes available to you, as well as the best Dragon’s Dogma 2 Pawn specializations to make the most of your faithful companion.
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