Dragon's Dogma 2's director thinks less fast travel in a game can be a good thing, and if traveling by foot is boring, that's the game's fault.
In an interview with IGN, Dragon's Dogma 2 director Hideaki Itsuno explored why the new Capcom game, as well as its predecessor, didn't allow for fast travel. The latest game in the series will have Oxcarts, which you can use to travel between specific parts of the game's huge map, but might come under attack from huge monstrous foes along the way.
"Just give it a try. Travel is boring? That's not true. It's only an issue because your game is boring. All you have to do is make travel fun," Itsuno said of fast travel in video games. The Dragon's Dogma 2 director wants to come up with methods that create different experiences for the player each time, like "enemy appearance methods."
"We've put a lot of work into designing a game where you can stumble across someone and something will happen, so while it's fine if it does have fast travel, we decided to design the kind of map where players will make the decision for themselves to travel by bike or on foot in order to enjoy the journey," Itsuno further explained.
Further detailing the Oxcarts, Itsuno said you might find a path blocked by goblins, and have no choice but to hop off the cart and attack them. Then a huge Griffin might swoop down, and destroy the cart itself, creating a situation where you're forced to walk the rest of the way to your destination. The key here is that none of that would have been set up by Capcom in advance.
"Instead, Griffins naturally have an inclination toward attacking cows they discover as they move, and these pieces all just happen to work together to naturally create the situation," Itsuno further elaborated. "So yes, an oxcart ride in this world may be cheap, but a lot can come as a result of that cheapness. I think that's the kind of world we've managed to create."
Player discovery like this is key to Capcom's new game, so much so that there's even one Dragon's Dogma 2 boss that players might never find. Check out our full Dragon's Dogma 2 preview to see why it's an RPG that speaks to our Witcher 3-loving heart, as well as comments from Itsuno himself on the new game.
You can also read up on our new games 2024 guide to see what Capcom's sequel is going up against, such as games like Princess Peach: Showtime.
