Dragon’s Dogma 2’s March 29 update adds New Game option, maxes out Art of Metamorphosis numbers
On 29 March, Capcom released an update for the PS5 and PC (Steam) versions of Dragon’s Dogma 2. It will be available for Xbox Series X|S players to download next week. Among various improvements, update 1.050 makes it possible to start a new game even if you have existing save data, and raises the number of Art of Metamorphosis items for sale at Pawn Guilds (bought with in-game currency) from two to 99.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is the long-awaited sequel to the original game that was first released back in 2012. Players journey through the high fantasy world as an Arisen, a character who has had their heart stolen by a dragon that they must defeat. You can take NPC characters called Pawns along with you to help on quests. Players can customize both their Arisen and one Pawn character, choosing their race, gender and appearance (and in this game, your main character’s physique matters).
The game’s first post-launch update was released today for PS5 and PC and will be available for the Xbox Series X|S next week. Firstly, it addresses two big player complaints. Players can now choose to start the game from the beginning. Previously, it wasn’t possible to start a new game without deleting your save data. In addition, the maximum number of the Art of Metamorphosis item that can be bought with in-game currency from the Pawn Guilds has been changed to 99. Art of Metamorphosis is an item you can use to change the appearance of your Arisen and Main Pawn at a barbershop. Previously, you could only buy a maximum of 2, so the amount has been significantly increased, perhaps due to microtransaction complaints.
The update also makes the quest where the player obtains their own dwelling (where they can save and rest) available earlier in the game. In addition, some text display issues and other minor bugs have been fixed.
Graphical options have also been added. On PS5, you now have the option to toggle motion blur and ray tracing. It is also possible to set the frame rate to a maximum of 30fps. However, the patch notes mention that these options do not significantly improve the frame rate, and that there will be more substantial frame rate fixes in future patches.
For Steam players, the graphics quality can now be improved by enabling DLSS SUPER RESOLUTION. They have also fixed an issue with character models’ display under certain settings.
It has been a week since Dragon’s Dogma 2’s release, and this initial patch has immediately addressed some of the main criticisms made by players. Hopefully, future updates will continue to reflect player feedback and resolve outstanding issues. At the time of writing, Dragon’s Dogma 2 has a “Mixed” review status on Steam, with only 55% of the 44,000 user reviews being positive. It will be interesting to see how these ratings change in response to future adjustments.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is available for PS5, PC (Steam), and Xbox Series X|S.
Written by. Verity Townsend based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2024-03-29 14:54 JST)
I am glad they are taking in the feedback from the users and addressing the problems with the game currently especially with FPS in the village and trying to walk back some of the worst DLC in regards to Wavestones(hopefully) and Character Edits. The few QOL’s i am hoping on is more additions to Vocations and the ability to have shorter characters on the character creator, as on Nexusmods there is the ability for shorter models with 4’9 on the Engine and anything else breaks the hitbox of the game. I think something that was in the original DD1 should be in DD2 as well and also what was on DDON should be implemented here on top of that. That is the expectation DD2 was going to be DDON with slight improvements.
I have a feeling DD2 will have the No Man’s Sky, Cyberpunk 4077 effect of having really bad reviews due to a really downgraded experience of what was advertised and game issues, but as the updates and QOL’s keep being added on it will become a highly received game as a whole. Also as a reminder Negative reviews are not always because people hate the game, but also because they have a desire to see things become better and have a desire to see the game have improvements to make it into a solid release, especially when there is constructive criticism on things that are possible to fix.