Dragon’s Dogma 2 receives heavy criticism for microtransactions

Despite launching to a swathe of positive critic reviews, Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 (available on PC, PS5, and Xbox) has been hit with a deserving onslaught of negative reviews on Steam due to the excessive amount of microtransactions that it offers.

Fans are, understandably, angered by the fact that a full-priced, single player game contains 21 different microtransactions at launch. These include things like fast-travel points (for £2.49) and a one-use character editor for £1.70. That’s right, if you want to customise your own character, you need to pay.

The game currently retails for £53.98 on Steam; however, the additional microtransactions total a whopping £36.60. The problem here is that many of these add-ons (like the rare Portcrystal fast-travel markers) should be in the game for free.

To make matters worse, Dragon’s Dogma 2 director Hideaki Itsuno was actually touting the benefits of limited fast travel in an interview with IGN before the game’s launch.

“Just give it a try. Travel is boring? That’s not true. It’s only an issue because your game is boring. All you have to do is make travel fun,” Itsuno said.

He continued, “We’ve put a lot of work into designing a game where you can stumble across someone and something will happen, so while it’s fine if it does have fast travel, we decided to design the map in a way that the journey [itself] could be enjoyed. In the same kind of way [in real life] that you may deliberately choose to go by bike or on foot when travelling [instead of taking faster options].”

If the game is so good that it doesn’t need fast travel, to that I ask, why do you need to sell Portcystals for £2.49 then? Or has fast travel been intentionally limited to make way for a microtransaction?

One negative review on Steam reads, “Hey Capcom, you can purchase a ‘good review DLC’ for $1.99.”

So, why wasn’t this microtransaction hell-scape picked up in critic reviews? Apparently, some reviewers aren’t reading the review guides that publishers send with review copies of games.

Windows Central, who awarded Dragon’s Dogma 2 4.5 stars out of 5 and called it “one of Capcom’s best ever games”, were quick to criticise the use of microtransactions once fan disapproval emerged online. However, the issue wasn’t mentioned in their review because (as an editor’s note explains) the writer likes to “avoid reading the review guide” which they admitted did detail the microtransactions under a dedicated DLC link which they “assumed referred to preorder bonuses.”

A cursory look down the Steam reviews page will reveal that microstransactions are a principal reason behind the negative reviews which have led to the game’s current “Mixed” overall rating.

“Look how they massacred my boy turned [sic] him into a cash grab,” wrote one reviewer.

Another said, “$1.99 to change what you look like. Let that set in. Two dollars. To change your appearance… Do not support this in the industry.”

The sad thing here is that the developers at Capcom have, by most accounts, made a pretty great action RPG. Unfortunately, it seems that greedy business practices have ruined an experience that fans have been waiting for for more than ten years.

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Downtime Bros did not receive a copy of Dragon’s Dogma 2 to review prior to launch, despite requesting one.

How do you feel about the microstransactions in Dragon’s Dogma 2? Let us know in the comment section below and don’t forget to check out our other gaming articles…