As of early November, Dragon's Dogma 2, Capcom's ogre-stabbing RPG, has hit a new sales milestone, with the company celebrating four million copies shifted. For a niche RPG with a hefty price tag, that's quite the win.
That puts it halfway to matching its predecessor's lifetime sales, including the sales of its well-received expanded edition, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen. It took Dragon's Dogma and Dark Arisen more than a decade to reach these numbers, so for the sequel to hit the halfway point in only a year and a half feels noteworthy.
Given how quickly Dragon's Dogma 2 seemed to trail off, and how much the discussion around it focused on performance issues and unnecessary microtransactions, I'm surprised it's done so well. The lack of news around post-launch support, like DLC or a Dark Arisen-style expansion, suggested Capcom was shunting it off to the side.
Despite its poor technical performance, however, I absolutely loved my monster-slaying holiday, giving it 89% in my Dragon's Dogma 2 review. I'll happily put up with a lower fps when I'm climbing up dragons to stab them in the eye or riding ogres like bucking broncos.
For others, though, the performance issues were a lot more severe, and the reason it's still sitting at "Mixed" reviews on Steam is largely down to persistent crashes (which I thankfully never experienced) and low framerates.
Still, I hope this isn't the last we've seen of Dragon's Dogma 2. An ambitious RPG with exceptional, kinetic combat and some brilliant class design like this deserves more time in the spotlight.
What I'm hoping for, then, is another Dark Arisen. A reason to go back to it, after spending over 100 hours mucking around, experimenting and murdering. Even with the solid sales figures, though, I'm not convinced we'll be getting an expansion. It's only received two minor updates this year, fixing a grand total of six bugs. This doesn't seem like a game that's got anyone working on it.
A boy can dream, though.
