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The director of Dragon's Dogma 2 has warned future players to take care of their favorite NPCs, as the developer takes death "seriously" and isn't afraid to kill characters off.
In an interview with Automaton, Dragon's Dogma 2's director Hideaki Itsuno and producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi discussed the upcoming game, and specifically its NPCs. When asked if the sequel will also feature Affinity like the first game, which allowed players to build friendships with the NPCs scattered around the map, the director revealed that "there will be a lot of it, and it will be even more pronounced."
"It's almost the entire reason why we made the game open-world," Itsuno continues. "There will be many events that occur/don’t occur depending on Affinity, and relationships between NPCs will also be important." On the topic of getting close with NPCs, the director goes on to explain that the premise since the beginning has been to create "a fantasy world simulator" and that part of this is having NPCs die as a regular occurrence.
"If there’s an NPC you care for in a town, you will need to protect them as you fight, or hold them and run," Itsuno warns players. Following on from this, Hirabayashi reassures fans that the resurrection item, Wakestones, also exists in Dragon's Dogma 2, "so even if an NPC dies, all is not lost." Echoing Itsuno's comments about the game being a fantasy simulator, the producer adds that "it's unnatural to have beings that are completely invincible."
"When there is death, we take it seriously, and it affects how we act," Hirabayashi continues. "In a world without death, I think people would be irresponsible and apathetic to their own actions."
As the conversation takes a slightly more existential turn, Itsuno also says: "I believe that death is an irreversible event, so there's a heavy emphasis on whether or not a player dies in the action part of the game. This is because the notion that 'if you die, you can just start over' compromises the feeling of adventure."
On a completely different note; ahead of Dragon's Dogma's release on March 22, those who have previewed the game early have revealed that Pawns have some brutal callouts for horny players - reminding them of the things they might have done in the first game like choosing an entirely female party.
It's also recently been revealed that GTA 5 and its flexible open-world design helped inspire Dragon's Dogma 2's vast RPG world.
