Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 are very different games, but those who enjoyed the medieval settings with goblins and monsters, deep character creation, and unique playstyles offered by class systems will enjoy what Dragon’s Dogma 2 has to offer.
You won’t find the turn-based combat system with dice rolls and the DnD world from Baldur’s Gate 3, but Dragon’s Dogma 2 freedom to customize not only the player’s appearance but also how you follow the story and explore the open world is very similar.
Dragon’s Dogma sequel comes 12 years after Capcom’s first installment was released in 2012. The Pawn feature, the diversity of vocations, and the vast open world with few loading screens full of side quests impressed the RPG community and was well received by critics. It only lacked the polish that Dragon’s Dogma 2 appears to bring in 2024.
If you enjoyed Baldur’s Gate 3, there’s a high chance Dragon’s Dogma 2 will immerse you in a fantastical adventure to defeat a massive dragon after it stole your heart—plus other incredible bosses amid a battle for the throne. Here are five reasons why you should try Dragon’s Dogma 2 if you love playing BG3.
1) Fantastical medieval RPG
The intriguing world of Bladur’s Gate 3 enchanted a lot of new players with unique races, monsters, and exploration in dungeons and strange lands that felt alive whether the player was currently there or not. Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s world offers a similar experience.
Since it’s the same setting as the first game, but in a parallel world, we have an idea of what to expect in the new game. It’s a world where it’s common to encounter goblins, harpies, griffins, and other fantastical creatures in your travels by land while facing undead, specters, and skeleton monsters in dungeons.
You get to walk and run a lot from quest to quest and discover interesting places with a European medieval aesthetic combined with the fantastical aspect of the game. Those who love not only Baldur’s Gate 3 but also Bethesda’s classic Elder Scrolls title Skyrim and the works of J. R. R. Tolkien will enjoy exploring Gransys.
2) Narrative-driven and player-choice
The focus in Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t combat, although it’s a huge part of the gameplay. Capcom prepared another story for fans that will leave the player plenty of opportunities to interfere with the outcome, bringing a strong sense of agency that was very present in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Your role as the Arisen and the Pawns that serve you will be used in a battle for Vermund in the middle of conspiracies and a false Arisen, all while the Dragon’s threat looms over everyone. You’ll meet interesting characters during your journey by completing smaller quests and choosing which missions you’ll complete to tell your story.
3) Deep character creation
Baldur’s Gate 3 showcased how players enjoy creating a character. Only one week after launch, players had spent 88 years in character creation alone. If you were one of those who have the time of their lives creating a character, Dragon’s Dogma 2 has got you covered.
The first game already had a detailed creation system and Capcom will deliver even more options for customization in the sequel while also giving players who don’t like this part pre-made bases made from real human face scans.
Players can alter the details from those bases to further customize little things such as neck length, torso width, forearm thickness, and lower lip position. The details can be changed through sliders and specialized options such as muscle types, nose, eyes, and more. The choices aren’t all just aesthetic either since whatever height and weight you choose can directly affect the character’s stats. This already happened in the original Dragon’s Dogma, but now players can also choose between two races: Human and Beastren.
Aside from the physical part, players pick from 10 vocations (similar to classes). Each specializes in a type of combat with unique and exclusive skills. The Warrior uses close combat, while the Archer focuses on long-ranged combat, for example.
4) Party system and talkative allies
Baldur’s Gate 3‘s companions—Astarion, Shadowheart, Gale, and Lae’zel, for example—were a huge part of the game’s success. Having them in your party would help you in battle with different classes and combat options while getting interesting interactions and commentary from them, and if you played multiplayer mode, your friends could take over them.
Although Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a single-player game, the Arisen can have up to three Pawns accompany them in their adventure. They are controlled by the AI, but you can choose what types of Pawns you can have in your party to make it more balanced or more interesting, based on their vocation, traits, and specialization.
They will make comments as you travel with them and can help you outside of battle. They automatically grab items from the floor, heal you with they can cast magic, point out an enemy’s weakness as they learn in battle, and have information about your quest. One interesting feature present in the Dragon’s Dogma 2 showcase in 2023 was the possibility of Pawns translating conversations in the Elven language, if they have the specialization.
You could share Pawns in the first game and Dragon’s Dogma 2 will likely have the same feature. That means players can upload a Pawn they like and get Pawns from other players in return as well. The only downside here is that Pawns can easily be replaced and they don’t have strong personalities like BG3‘s now-iconic companions.
5) Open world full of quests and encounters
The open-world genre is taking over the gaming industry, but Dragon’s Dogma already did it in a controversial way in 2012. There are no mounts and no direct fast-travel method, which transforms traveling from quest to quest into its own journey.
It forces the player to actually explore the world the developers created, but it can also make players who are quite accustomed to fast travel fairly anxious. You can travel following the road, which is safer but can be the target of thieves and ambushes, or you can take a shortcut outside of the road but encounter several monsters.
It’s different from Baldur’s Gate 3 but similar at the same time. A big part of the wonder of exploring is the interesting encounters planned by the developers and the struggles to get to the next dungeon, cave, or town. Will you enter the random cave you found while heading to the capital or will you continue your journey because the sun is setting?
Day and night also matter in Dragons’ Dogma since it gets truly dark during the night and more dangerous monsters come out to hunt. It’s a wide open-world map that forces players to make choices and plan for the journey.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is lined up for a Friday, March 22 release.
