As part of Capcom's Tokyo Game Show presentation, we've gotten our most extensive look yet at Dragon's Dogma 2, and it's looking like exactly what I want out of a follow-up to the cult classic open-world RPG.
The joy of the first Dragon's Dogma was the amount of freedom it offered in combat, with highly reactive, massive enemies that you could knock down and climb all over, Shadow of the Colossus-style. The sequel seems to be doubling down, as the new gameplay footage shows how you can tip over an ogre standing near a canyon and use the monster as a bridge, or bust open a dam to turn the environment against the monster.
Capcom's biggest reveals here are details about the new Vocations - classes, in more traditional RPG parlance - including the advanced, hybrid options. The original game's bow-and-dagger Vocation, Strider, appears to have been broken out into two separate starting options this time around, with Archer offering tons of ranged potential, and Thief focused on lightning-quick dagger attacks and loads of climbing potential.
The Vocation I'm really excited about is the new hybrid Vocation, Mystic Spearhand. Capcom describes the Mystic Spearhand as "a good all-rounder" that has a long-reaching Duospear for melee combat and a variety of spells that can debuff enemies or turn nearby objects into projectiles.
In the footage, we see a Mystic Spearhead fighting a chimera and a group of wolves. He uses a spell to paralyze a wolf, teleport to melee range, stab it to death with the spear, and then use magic to pick up the wolf's corpse and throw it at the chimera for a spectacular improvised ranged attack. Folks, video game combat does not get better than beating a MFer with another MFer, and I could not be more excited to apply that logic in Dragon's Dogma 2.
You should watch the whole nine minute presentation above, but there's one more detail that I'm keen to highlight: nights are still pitch-black and dangerous as hell. The original Dragon's Dogma rewarded an almost survival game-level of preparation for excursions into the dark, and I'm so happy the sequel seems keen to be equally punishing toward poorly-prepared explorers.
Capcom says Dragon's Dogma 2 is "four times the size" of the original game.
