Dragon's Dogma 2 has finally arrived, but its reputation is ...... Not so good: Steam currently boasts more than 13,000 user reviews, the majority of which are negative. Only 39% of players who have left a review have given it a positive rating. Not a good start.

This "Mostly Negative" rating is due to several factors, the most significant being the presence of microtransactions. As Harvey pointed out today, microtransactions are very silly, but that's for something that can be easily obtained for next to nothing. They are completely unnecessary. This is because the existence of microtransactions creates the illusion that players have to spend money to get more rift crystals or the ability to change their appearance.

This situation sucks and players are understandably angry. I think some of this fuss is overkill and while we have lived with microtransactions for a long time, Capcom has never been friendly to RPGs. This is not a cheap game and giving players a long list of additional charges for silly things like camping gear and wake stones (all easily obtained in-game) is obviously going to piss players off. Dragon's Dogma 2 and its players deserve better.

Another issue that players are disappointed with is poor optimization, which we noted in our Dragon's Dogma 2 review and accompanying performance analysis. Capcom itself acknowledges the CPU load issue, but it is unclear how long it will take to remedy the problem.

This area will be different for everyone. In my two playthroughs, I only encountered a major frame rate drop in Varnworth, the busiest town, which, while frustrating, had little impact on the overall experience. That said, I am playing on a rig with an RTX 4090 and an Intel i9-13900k.

To be honest, the frame rate drops and even the odd stutter don't bother me much if the rest of the game is good enough. My all-time favorite "Dishonored 2" also had performance issues when it first came out, but I was still hooked on the game. The game is about more than frame rate.

But again, it is perfectly reasonable to expect a £50 game from a major studio to run smoothly on modern hardware. These problems did not suddenly occur on release day or when review codes were distributed. Capcom was aware of the state of the game.

The overall situation kinda sucks. The buzz surrounding the game should have focused on tossing goblins, climbing dragons, and ridiculously good combat. But all of those things are overshadowed by the optional purchases and frame rate. It's all Capcom's fault.

But the same thing happened with "Hell Diver 2". Due in part to server problems and bugs, it fell into "Mostly Negative" territory. It has now settled into "Very Positive". There is still hope for Dragon's Dogma 2, but it is a shame that its arrival was tinged with disappointment.