Dragon’s Dogma II will be four times bigger than the original

Capcom Showcases typically don’t bring a lot of heat since the developer tends to focus on fleshing out games it has already revealed, instead of dropping tons of new information. That was the case for all but one game during the June 12, 2023 event, with Dragon’s Dogma II getting a nice spotlight and the first real deep dive. 

We saw our first look at the new Dragon’s Dogma during May’s PlayStation event, getting an actual gameplay trailer and a bit of insight into what is different this time around. Director Hideaki Itsuno also shared plenty of additional info on where the team has put its focus for the sequel—now a decade-plus in the making.

As expected, the game is running on the RE Engine and will feature a fleshed-out world full of new and returning places to explore. Itsuno claims Dragon’s Dogma II will be ‘four times bigger’ than the original game and use several other features to enhance how players interact with the enemies and environments of the world. 

Unfortunately, one of those new features is not the drop in co-op players were hoping for. Dragon’s Dogma II will be an entirely single-player experience that tasks players with taking their experience into their own hands. There are two new mechanics that will make fighting enemies with your party of NPCs a bit more engaging, however. 

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The first new addition is Pawns, or improved NPC party members that use AI to enhance their abilities in combat and allow for precise decisions and exploration. Itsuno says this will emulate “playing in a party with other players” while allowing for a fully single-player experience. 

Those powerful AI enhancements have also been used to help popular the game’s world with characters and monsters in order to provide a more interactive experience. 

Players will control their custom Arisen character but can also fully customize what Capcom is calling a “Main Pawn” that will act as sort of a main partner during your journey. Two additional “Support Pawns” can be borrowed from other players, so it looks like there will be some online features that will let you share content between players. 

The second key feature is an updated physics engine that will let players and NPC impact the world through their actions. This can be seen in the trailer by the Arisen causing a monster to stumble by pulling its leg during combat or destroying a bridge.

Things like returning monsters and other content were confirmed too, but Itsuno and the team weren’t ready to drop more details. Capcom will share more information about new and returning content coming to Dragon’s Dogma II, along with a release date, in the near future.