Dragon’s Dogma 2 was already a big game with a whole lot for players to do. As you may expect, the game’s Dark Arisen expansion substantially increases the game’s content and challenge, resulting in a worthwhile return to the game’s world. It still has the vast majority of the base game’s shortcomings which stick out even worse with hindsight, but fans will likely relish the additions.
Dark Arisen concerns another supposed Arisen that’s been spotted in the snowy region of Norgan after the player character sees visions of the world destroyed. There’s an unkillable dragon in the mix too and the plot hinges on finding a way to stop it and save the world. It’s serviceable for what it is, but it continues the tradition of Dragon’s Dogma not having a particularly interesting story.
Norgan itself is a decent-sized region, albeit one that’s a fraction of the size of the main game’s map. It’s roughly comparable to the size of the Battahl region, but far more dense in terms of things to do and see. There are a good number of points of interest and some of the areas can be more perilous due to Dark Arisen’s brand new feature.
As Norgan is a snowy Northern region, you’ll be contending with blizzards at times. When these happen, you’ll be partially snowblind at first, unable to see your minimap or even properly pinpoint your exact location on the main map. To make matters worse, the longer you’re exposed to the cold, the more your stamina gauge gets burned (frozen?) off.
If you wait too long, your stamina will drop to nothing until you pass out and wake up at the closest camp. This actually does a fairly decent job of creating some tension, as you can be scrambling to try and find a cave or building to hide in before things reach this point. If you do, your stamina will stop dropping and will refill eventually. You can also fight against this by using a heatstone or a certain potion too.
One of the other biggest additions is that, instead of focusing on buying or crafting new gear, enemies now drop gear called relics. You’ll take these to a woman in the region’s village and she’ll identify them in exchange for rift crystals. These come in several levels and are all separated by type (such as light weaponry, or different types of armor), but what you get is random.
You can also craft some new gear, but there’s not really any reason to do so, as the relics you find will almost always be considerably better. As such, you’ll constantly be finding relics, which turns Dragon’s Dogma 2 into a more typical looter RPG. Whether this is a good thing or not is up to you, but it does make it much easier to swap between vocations, as pretty much every class will have excellent gear available at all times.
The map is just as fun to explore as the base game’s and the enemy variety is also pretty different. You’ll still run into lots of nokkens and wolves, but most enemies are newish, including ghouls, humanoid foes called Beorcans, and a host of new giant enemies such as an ice dragon and freaky ogre thing with teeth in its abdomen that can swallow you whole.
Of course, there’s a healthy amount of new side quests in addition to the new lengthyish main quest. These side quests almost all pertain to characters you meet and often tie in with one another. There’s plenty to do, plus there’s another new endgame feature that has you go around closing rifts by fighting waves of enemies in order to fight a new superboss. That’s on top of the dozen dungeons added to the main map to help players prepare for the new region.
One thing that’s weird, though, is just how early on Dark Arisen’s content becomes available. You can easily start it as soon as you reach Vermund and doing so will massively trivialize the rest of the game. I started Dark Arisen at level 55 and finished it at level 130, which is a ridiculous level of growth. My fully improved endgame gear was very quickly outclassed as well.
There’s a lot to do here and anyone hoping to do everything can easily put in over 30 hours (plus more since some of the dungeons are apparently only available in The Unmoored World that unlocks after beating the main game). You’ll need an item acquired via the new main map dungeons to unlock new skills too. One of the dungeon chests bugged for me, though, and I didn’t get the item I was owed, which annoyed me.
As far as improvements go, though, there’s not much here. All the jank remains, including the lack of a lock-on feature and the awful creature climbing, which is just as bad as ever. The more interesting loot does make searching enemies and piles of junk far more worthwhile, though, and at least the new terrain and some new enemies definitely spice things up.
Verdict
Whether you find Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen worthwhile will entirely depend on how much you enjoyed the base game. If you loved it and just want another region and some more enemies, then this is a pretty fantastic expansion. If you’re looking for a notably different experience, however, you won’t find it here. I definitely got most of what I wanted, though, even if I absolutely hated the tedious, frustrating main final boss.
