Players massively criticize Dragon’s Dogma 2 for microtransactions and poor optimization
Dragon’s Dogma 2, an action-adventure role-playing game from developer and publisher Capcom, was released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. The game has received quite high marks from critics and publications.
The project is praised for its interesting world, elaborate role-playing elements, and deep combat system.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 has reached 184 thousand players on Steam and now holds Capcom’s highest record for the number of simultaneous users for a single-player game, surpassing Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil Village.
At the same time, players do not share the enthusiasm for the game. In less than a day since its release, the game has already received more than 7 thousand user reviews on Steam, of which only 40% are positive.
The game has been criticized for its poor technical condition – Dragon’s Dogma 2 freezes even on computers with Geforce 4090, a large number of microtransactions within the game, and the presence of Denuvo protection.
For example, you can purchase Rift Crystals, the game’s in-game currency, which is used to buy new pawns and other items.
Also available for purchase is the Double Rift Incense, a special item that changes the behavior of pawns.
If you don’t want to waste time traveling in the game, you can buy a special Return Crystal that will instantly transport you to a pre-designated location.
If you suddenly stop liking your character, no problem – with the Art of Transformation special item, you can change your character’s appearance, but only once.
In terms of performance, PC Gamer reports that although the game uses the RE-Engine engine, which has proven to be quite good in Resident Evil remakes, it took much more resources to create a seamless large world.
Because of this, the game requires a fairly powerful processor. Reddit users write that killing NPCs en masse reduces the load and the game starts to run better.
PC players also report that it is impossible to start the game from the beginning because it does not delete existing saves. To do this, you have to delete all saves manually from your computer and Steam cloud storage.
On consoles, the situation is not much better:
- PlayStation 5: an average 38 FPS at dynamic 2160p;
- Xbox Series X: an average of 40 FPS at dynamic 2160p;
- Xbox Series S: an average of 35 FPS at dynamic 1440p.
The game uses global lighting raytracing on PS5 and XSX, and it can’t be turned off.
Despite all the criticism, most reviews say that, abstracting from the technical state, the game is still good.
A few hours after the launch, Capcom apologized for the inconvenience and noted that the game has no exclusive donation resources and is balanced so that players do not have to resort to paid microtransactions.
In addition, Capcom is already working on the problem of the inability to start a new game.
Regarding the frame rate, the studio reported that a significant part of the CPU resources is allocated to each character and calculating the impact of their physical presence in different areas. In certain situations, when many characters appear at the same time, the CPU usage can be very high and affect the frame rate.
The team recognizes that the measures taken to optimize performance have not been sufficient, and work is underway to improve performance.