Video Game / Dragon's Dogma II

Ascend, Arisen, and best me, in accordance with the dogma of this world.

Dragon's Dogma II (also alternatively written as Dragon's Dogma 2) is the sequel to Capcom's Action RPG Dragon's Dogma. It was originally revealed on May 2022 and has Hideaki Itsuno returning as the director. It was released on March 21, 2024 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC. A demo version containing only the game's character creator was released on March 7, 2024, allowing players to create their Arisen and Pawns ahead of the game's release.

Dragon's Dogma II takes place in a parallel world to the original game, with many familiar and new elements to explore. The story begins in an underground gaol where the Dragon's voice echoes in the fog of lost memories. Betwixt the domains of human and Beastren, a hero must fulfill their forgotten destiny. Rather than Gransys, the game sees the player explore the human kingdom of Vermund and the Beastren nation of Battahl, becoming embroiled in their politics while working to fight the Dragon.

The game sees a number of changes to the original's vocations: Fighter, Mage, Warrior, Sorcerer and Magick Archer return, but Strider has been split into two separate vocations named Thief (wielding daggers) and Archer (wielding bows), and Magick Archer can no longer wield daggers, now being a ranged-only class. Ranger, Assassin and Mystic Knight have been removed, but the game introduces three new vocations in the form of the duospear-wielding Mystic Spearhand, the incense-wielding Trickster and the Warfarer, who can use a combination of all weapons from other vocations at the cost of lower stats, bringing the total number of vocations to 10.

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Tropes:

• Absurdly High Level Cap: The level cap for both the Arisen and pawns are 999, a huge step from the original game's level cap of 200.
• Advertising by Association: The "Calls from Hideaki Itsuno and Casey Edwards" video which was uploaded a day before the launch of Devil May Cry: Peak of Combat has Itsuno advertising Dragon's Dogma II before the end of his segment, which makes sense because he's a recurring series director for both the Devil May Cry and Dragon's Dogma IPs of Capcom.
  Itsuno: Please also pay more attention to "Dragon's Dogma 2".
• Alternate Universe: Instead of taking place in the same world as the first game, II takes place in a parallel universe. The Unmoored World heavily implies that the events of the first game happened in some manner, as you can find the remains of what appears to be Gran Soren once all the bodies of water dry up.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The first game allows you to buy flasks to preserve perishable foods and prevent them from spoiling. This entry allows you to combine foods into dried snacks whenever they ripen or age. With this, dried meats can be kept around for cooking without rotting away.
  • Whenever you unlock a new Vocation to use, you are given a full set of equipment for that vocation to wear. So no more starting out naked when unlocking a vocation that uses nothing you were previously wearing.
  • Stat growth is still based on your current vocation when you level up, but when switching to a new vocation, base stats are adjusted to suit the vocation you are changing to. While you will want to level with certain vocations to make your desired future vocation better (e.g. leveling Mage or Sorcerer before changing to Magick Archer), doing otherwise will not render certain vocations nonviable.
  • If found in an Unwinnable by Mistake situation, you can either load from your most recent save, or the last time you rested at an inn.
• Apocalypse How: The Unmoored World. When the Arisen chooses to stab themselves with the Godsbane in an effort to reject the Pathfinder's cycle, the latter responds by unleashing the Brine upon the world. The skies turn red, the seas are drained, many fell creatures roam the land and some parts of the world such as the region around Melve have already fallen to it. Time has also seemingly halted to a standstill, only progressing when the player rests. Once the Arisen awakens in the Unmoored World, their tasks involve defeating powerful monsters and evacuating the various settlements and cities before the end.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • Though the Pawn system AI has been improved in many ways, often subtle, the AI still tends to make poor decisions. Caster Pawns will stand uncomfortably close to danger and pawns in general have been known to throw themselves off cliffs or into open water, killing themselves instantly. This is generally equal parts amusing and frustrating.
  • Enemies, likewise, will at times wander too deep (or just straight up dive) into water, where they are instantly subject to the same Super Drowning Skills as the player and other NPCs. On the bright side, this also means an easy win and free experience points.
• Ascended Extra: Downplayed. While the Brine does not play a major role in the story, it poses a much more severe threat than simply killing anything unlucky enough to land itself in deep water. In this game, the Brine is akin to a cosmic threat as it ravages the world on the Pathfinder's orders when the Arisen refuses to play ball with his plans. It's even capable of spawning monsters, including dragons, something it was not able to do in the first game.
• Ascended Meme: In Dragon's Dogma, the Arisen could be pulled underwater by the Brine even after becoming the Seneschal (a mere oversight of the dev team and not intentional), which led to the fans joking that the Brine was some sort of Eldritch Abomination that surrounded the entire world. Come Dragon's Dogma II, and that's exactly what the Brine is, a consuming entity controlled by the Pathfinder that is omnipresent, able to manifest in bodies of water deep enough. And it's so huge and powerful that, when you defy the Pathfinder by using the Godsbane on yourself to not fight the Dragon, he orders it to envelop the entire planet, turning it into a post-apocalyptic wasteland infested with monsters and plagued by multiple dragons. Holy crap.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Given the monumental task of killing the Dragon, the Arisen have to be badass if they want to succeed. This plays into why the Arisen is hailed as the one-true Sovran of Vermund; Brant and several other characters make it very clear the Arisen's rule is uncontested, if not integral to the kingdom's future. This is also the reason why Disa tries to take the Arisen out of the picture and install her son Sven as the Sovran, since such a position would give her and her house near-perfect political power.
• Autosave: Your progress is automatically saved at certain points, but a related tutorial prompt also warns that the autosave system can be unreliable (just like in the first game). The prompt even recommends you to regularly rest at an inn so that the reliability of your saved data is ensured, since resting at an inn manually forces the game to create a "checkpoint" save that can be loaded via the "Last Inn Rest" option.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The Gorechimera, being undead, starts the battle with the lion and snake heads dead and them having to be reanimated by the goat's necromancy spells. While terrifying and rather Rule of Cool, it means that until the goat casts two separate spells: one to reanimate the lion and one to reanimate the snake, the Gorechimera is vulnerable as it lacks its primary offense and thus can be killed very easily as long as the goat is constantly targeted and is always interrupted before it can successfuly complete its spell and raise the lion and snake heads.
• Behemoth Battle: One quest in the Unmoored World guides you back to the Gigantus. Upon reaching it, your Main Pawn will suddenly possess it and goes on to fight and kill a massive Purgener single-handedly while you and Lord Phaesus are left to just watch from a safe distance.
• Bittersweet Ending: The true ending ends with Arisen killing the Pathfinder with the Empowered Godsbane Blade and freeing the world from the Cycle, with the world slowly beginning to heal from the effects of the Unmoored World. However, the Arisen and their pawn both sacrifice themselves to bring this about, with their beloved looking out towards the sea in sadness.
• Black Knight: One of the game's new boss monsters is the dullahan, a creature resembling a ghostly knight in dark armor holding his own head like a lantern and wielding a sickle as a weapon. He can be found as a rare overworld encounter during night time, and as part of the "Till Death Do Us Part" quest.
• Blob Monster: Slimes are one of the game's new enemies, resembling shapeless goop that is impervious to physical damage and can slow you down and eat away at your health quickly if left unchecked. You need elemental attacks to be able to kill them, with ice being most effective as it freezes them solid.
  • The Ooze and Sludge are variants of the slime encountered later in the game. The former is a blob of oil that tars on contact and combusts easily when exposed to fire, while the latter is a Living Lava that burns on touch, turning solid when water or ice are used against it.
• Border Patrol: The Brine returns from the first game, keeping players from venturing into deep water, and is even introduced by consuming Rook near the end of the tutorial. Like with the original Dragon's Dogma, any enemy or Pawn who is taken by the Brine is killed instantly.
• Call-Back: The first Pawn to assist the player is Rook, the selfsame introductory Pawn from the first game.
• Canon Immigrant: Two of the new monsters introduced to the game are the Sphinx and the Medusa. Both of these creatures made their first appearance in Dragon's Dogma Online, albeit with different designs. The new Sphinx has carried over its predecessor's peacock motif, prominent breasts, piercing red eyes, and multicoloured blue and yellow feathers, but while the new Sphinx is a unique character in her own right with a lengthy questline associated with her, the Dragon's Dogma Online Sphinx was just another monster to be fought and in gameplay terms was merely an Underground Monkey of the Griffin. The previous Medusa, meanwhile, was a humanoid spellcaster similar to a Wight as opposed to a serpentine monster, although both versions have similar faces.
• Cat Folk: The game introduces a new species of humanoid felines called the Beastren. If you so choose, you can play as a Beastren yourself or create a Beastren pawn.
• Censor Steam: Your character and your pawns, along with other NPCs, are completely naked while in the hot springs; only a conveniently-placed steam that follows you around covers the sensitive parts.
• Character Customization: You can customize the appearance of your Arisen and main Pawn in-depth using a wide variety of options and sliders. This time around, you can even decide to create Beastren characters.
• Classical Chimera: The Chimera makes a return from the previous game, largely unchanged save for a few differences: notably, the goat head now casts more powerful spells that strike multiple times rather than just one. Design-wise, it has also lost the extra digits it had in the first game, now sporting normal lion front paws and goat hind hooves.
• Collection Sidequest: The Seeker's Tokens return from the first game. There are two-hundred and forty Seeker's Token's scattered throughout the game world that you can collect and turn in for various rewards. Collecting eighty of them is tied to an achievement.
  • The game also adds the Golden Trove Beetles, consumable items that you can find to increase you and your pawn's max encumbrance by 0.15 kg each time they are consumed.
• Colossus Climb: You can scale just about every large enemy in the game, with most of their weak spots being either the head or chest. The best example is with the Talos, which is a more traditional colossus with weak points all over its body.
• Company Cross References: Apart from nods to the Dragon's Dogma franchise, this game also has several references to other Capcom IPs. From the Character Creation system alone, there's a hairstyle that greatly resembles the iconic hair of Leon S. Kennedy. And just like the first game, the list of pre-set Monikers includes the names of Capcom characters such as Zangief and Vergil.
  • Two nearly identical NPCs at Checkpoint Rest Town, one of whom is required to be brought to the Sphinx to solve one of her last four riddles, are named after Dante and Vergil.
• Continuity Nod: When the oceans recede during the post-game Unmoored World sequence, the Seafloor Shrine is fully revealed as the remains of the first game's Gran Soren; vendors evacuated there even set up shop in the same buildings. Gauging by relative locations, the circular ruins near Vernworth are what's left of Blue Moon Tower, and there's even a permanent Portcrystal revealed around where the one outside Cassardis was in Dark Arisen. In addition, the final pillar of light appears directly above the Everfall, the location core to the never-ending cycle in the first game.
  • The throne underneath the Seafloor Shrine where the player first meets Rothais bears a striking resemblence to the same throne sat upon by the Seneschal in the first game.
• Death Is Cheap:
  • Played straight with Pawns. If or when they die, they are simply returned to the Rift.
  • Downplayed with Wakestones. They can revive any NPC on the field or in the Morgue. However, they are rare to assemble or collect through normal means. Certain NPCs in quests are gone for good should they die.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • One of the Sphinx's riddles involves the player being tasked with returning to the site of the very first Seeker's Token they collected, testing their memory. If the player hasn't collected any Seeker's Tokens, the Sphinx will note that the Arisen seems bewildered by her request. When the player finds their first Seeker's Token, there will be a Finder's Token right next to it.
  • After five riddles, the Sphinx will fly off to a new location, challenging the player to find her. If you're quick, you can clamber onto her back and simply hitch a ride there. As she flies off, the Sphinx will notice you, and congratulate you on your quick thinking.
  • Ogres typically seek out the females in the player's party and will attempt to grab and run off with them, but can be fooled by a male character wearing feminine clothing. When they realise they've been tricked, they will become enraged and slam their captive into the ground. Likewise, if a female character is sufficiently covered up to the point where it isn't obvious they're female, Ogres will not target them.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Warfarer vocation is Weak, but Skilled in that, while it has the advantage of using all the vocation abilities and weapons of other vocations on top of having no armor restrictions, it lowers your base stats on top and, like the Mystic Spearhand, runs on Magikarp Power as it can only use the vocation abilities you've already unlocked with your other vocations. This makes it difficult to use at first, but once you've sufficiently leveled up your vocations, unlocked the right abilities and have the perfect set-up, the Warfarer can show off its full potential. Fancy yourself a cross between a mage and a Magick Archer? Slap a mine on an enemy and let loose.
• Double Meaning: The "Feast of Deception" main quest has you finally confronting the False Arisens lies during the Sovran Coronation... except you don't even enter the palace. Your main pawn senses something compelling them to turn on you, forcing you both to retreat before things get worse. You later learn that the False Arisen has a powerful "godsway" item that controls pawns, continuing to "feed" lies to the Vermundian populace, so you must investigate and find a way to negate it before settling the score.
• Downer Beginning: The game opens to you returning to Vernworth to claim the throne as Sovran, only to be stricken by a curse, robbed of your memories, and Made a Slave in a neighboring nation.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Brine is a mass of amorphous red...something that lurks in deep bodies of water and devours any living thing that falls in. It is actually an extension of the "great will" that reigns over the world, and when you Screw Destiny by using the Godsbane Blade on yourself, the Brine extends from the seas into the skies and begins to destroy the world.
• Escort Mission: These return but instead of getting them from a notice board, characters will appear at your home or run into you in the wild to ask you to escort them to a certain place in the world. Successful completion will yield a boost to their affinity towards you.
• Evolving Title Screen: Throughout most of the game, the title screen just says "Dragon's Dogma" for some reason, with the II nowhere to be seen. Then, after you defy the Pathfinder's plans by using the Godsbane on yourself, thus breaking the cycle of the Arisen fighting the Dragon, the post-game is unlocked, and finally the II is added to the title screen.
• Excalibur in the Rust: The Regalia Sword, wielded by the Sovran in Vermundian History, is given by Ser Roman to the Arisen in its dull form as a result of Disa's disdain towards tradition leaving it unmaintained. The Arisen is tasked with bringing it to the Ultimate Blacksmith residing in Bakbattahl who can restore the blade to its former glory. Being a ceremonial weapon however, the sword itself cannot be wielded for combat.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: In an attempt to gain more political power, the Queen Regent Disa has a man play the role of the "Arisen", if only so he will keep the Drakken Throne warm until her son is ready to claim it. To help sell the ruse, she even gives the fake Arisen a special amulet that lets him control Pawns. As a result, few believe the real Arisen is who they claim to be, barring those who are aware of Disa's manipulations such as Brant.
• Fantastic Racism:
  • The Beastren of Battahl are not welcoming towards Pawns, seeing them as a source of great misfortune. Given what happens to pawns afflicted by dragonsplague, they've every right to be concerned.
  • Downplayed. Vermund has an anti-Beastren sentiment under the surface, though it's rare to find any NPC who shows any hostile prejudice toward them. However, you can find hate filled letters in the Slums toward them and those in power are willing to use Beastren as scapegoats.
  • There are elves in the game, and while not easily seen, dwarves do exist within the game's world. And with few exceptions, the relationship between both races is roughly what you'd expect.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Hideaki Itsuno stated the game's world is based on Medieval Mediterranean culture, with Vermund, the human kingdom, being based on the island of Sicily during the Classic/Medieval period, while Battahl is based on Arab Tunisia.
• Fast-Forward Mechanic:
  • Like the first game, staying in an inn will fast forward to later that night or the next morning. The new campfire feature works the same way, with cooking and no need to spend gold.
  • Dozing off on seats with draped red cloths, or passing the time in a bar or tavern, will allow you to fast forward by a few hours instead of a half or full day. Similarly, dozing off during oxcart rides will cause time to pass and have you reach your destination in no time, unless you are ambushed by monsters or bandits.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: While Fighter and Mage returns, Strider has been split into two classes: Archer and Thief.
• Food Porn: Resting at a campsite now gives you the option of cooking meat to give stat bonuses to your party. Choosing to do this results in a live-action close-up of the food being grilled.
• Foreshadowing: Sometimes when you recruit a pawn to your party early on, they'll talk about rumors they've heard of some sort of illness that affects pawns crossing the rift. The illness will initially just make them belligerent but eventually will make them ignore their master altogether. After a certain point in the story, this illness will become a gameplay mechanic where pawns you hire can come infected with a virus that makes them ignore your orders. Though that is far from the worst part of the virus...
• Gameplay and Story Integration: While many complain that a significant part of the game, including the battle with the dragon, seem too easy, the reality is that the player was always meant to win it, as the Pathfinder intends to continue the cycle forever so they can rule the world for all eternity. Once the player has refused to perpetuate the cycle, the gloves come off and enemies that would normally be considered rare minibosses like Gorechimeras and Dullahans become extremely common. In the first half, you lived in a world that was locked into easy mode by default for the sake of the one in charge. In the Unmoored World, the world is fresh out of mercy and will absolutely decimate an unprepared player.
• Guide Dang It!: The riddles of the Sphinx range in difficulty, but some are particularly annoying.
  • One of the Sphinx's first requests is to meet her parent. The solution is you have to recruit an official Capcom pawn named either SphinxFather or SphinxMother or SphinxParent . They can only be recruited from the Riftstone of Fellowship which is relatively nearby. Player pawns named SphinxFather or SphinxMother or SphinxParent do count, but you must be certain the name is written absolutely the same way as official Capcom pawns.
  • The most infuriating riddle involves you returning to the location where you found your first Seeker Medal. And the game gives you absolutely zero hints as to where that was, and only gives 7 in-game days to find it.
    • However, it is, by its nature, a relatively easy thing to narrow down, given that unless a player intentionally avoided Seeker Tokens, they'll most likely have found their first one either in Vermund or in the starting areas of the game, which can easily be covered within the seven day timeframe. The only other restriction is travel time, and by this point the player will have been given both a Portcrystal and Ferrystone as rewards for riddles, making it extremely easy to return once the needed item is found.
  • The final trick that the Sphinx plays on you happens after you've completed every riddle. Trying to fight the Sphinx will usually cause her to grow bored of the fight and leave, because the fight itself is also a riddle. The mural found right before the player finds her for the first time has the Riddle of the Sphinx in it, with the added detail that she would offer a reward to one who would leave it "unmarked by sword"; the answer is a man, unharmed by weapons, telling the player they must fight her by only dealing damage to the parts of her that are not a man (i.e. everywhere but her human head and breasts), which can be easier said than done, especially with Pawns. Alternatively, the player can also use an Unmaking Arrow (one which is a reward from one of her riddles, potentially the very last since the second batch is randomized) to kill her instantly, but the issue with this is that you have to wait until her health bar appears to kill her; too early and the arrow will have no effect and too late, and you miss your window. Also, only Archers can actually use the Unmaking Arrow. Your reward for killing the Sphinx is an Eternal Wakestone, which revives multiple NPCs instead of just one (and isn't unlimited as the name might imply). This Wakestone can be very useful if you happen to have a city deal with a rogue pawn suffering from Dragonsplague.
  • The game is very vague about the potentially deadly ramifications of Dragonsplague infection. When you encounter the disease for the first time, you'll get a tutorial about Dragonsplague, warning that it will result in a calamity if left unattended to. Dragonsplague is not listed on the status screens as a debilitation, and the only way to know if a Pawn is infected is to watch for the symptoms, which range from red glowing eyes to refusing to follow orders. There are also only two known ways to cure Dragonsplague: pass it to another Pawn, or forfeit the Pawn. If you rest in an inn while one of your Pawns is infected, you run the risk of said Pawn mutating into a dragon and killing everyone in the surrounding area, potentially including plot-critical NPCs and leaving the game potentially Unwinnable. It is possible to revive dead NPCs with Wakestones, but it takes a lot of time and/or resources to accrue enough to revive a city. You could also get the Eternal Wakestone and use that to revive a city's worth of people in one swoop, but that requires slaying the Sphinx, and It Only Works Once while Dragonsplague can strike again.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: One of the Mystic Spearhand's spells allows them to psychically hurl objects at enemies, including enemies who have been stunned or slain.
• Hidden Elf Village: The Sacred Arbour is home to the elves, who in comparison to Vermund and Bettahl do not involve themselves with the rest of the world and have no particular views toward Pawns or the Arisen. Unlike most examples, they also aren't hostile to outsiders provided they don't intentionally provoke them.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Invoked by the "An Eye for an Eye" achievement, which asks the player to petrify a Medusa. One of the ways to do this is by beheading a Medusa to obtain her head, storing it to avoid letting it rot, rest for a week and then use the head against the respawned Medusa to petrify her. Another way is to retrieve the Daughter of the Evening shield from the Vermund Castle Vault, and then block Medusa's gaze with it to reflect back at her.
• A Homeowner Is You: Completing specific quests will grant players the opportunity to buy homes in the game's world, granting them the perks of resting at an Inn for free thereafter.
• Interface Screw: Without a pawn that possesses a "Woodland Wordsmith" specialization, all dialogue by the residents in Sacred Arbor will be in unrecognizable Elvish script. Even the usual text for shops and inns in this village will have this format.
• Internal Homage: The Dragon swallows the newly-minted Arisen's heart using his finger, recreating the scene from the beginning of the first game where the Dragon also swallowed the Arisen's heart.
• In-Universe Game Clock: The game once again has a day and night cycle, where various NPCs are only available during certain times of day. Unlike the first game, the player can easily tell what time of day it is in the main menu, and can more quickly pass time at taverns or dozing off on benches without needing to rest at an inn.
• Jack of All Trades: The Warfarer is a new vocation that can use every weapon and can learn different skills from each vocation, at the cost of lower base stats. While using this vocation, all of your other unlocked vocations gain experience as well, regardless if you have their weapon. Although this leads to the pool of discipline points bring spread thin, resulting in slower leveling, it also means that the vocations you have yet to start using can level up equally, and allow you to unlock their skills, augments, and abilities without switching.
• Language Barrier: By default, the Arisen cannot understand Elven language and will require a Pawn with the associated skill or other NPCs to translate for them.
• Lighter and Softer: While the violence, high stakes and darker aspects of the original game's story remain, the world is overall prettier and cleaner, the citizens of both Vermund and Battahl are relatively more pleasant, and questlines tend to have more positive outcomes and options. In the game's final act, rather than despairing or casting blame on the Arisen for the world's end, past allies rally to take charge and make things better, and the ending is a clear victory over the powers-that-be.
• Living Statue: Late in the story, the player must face the Gigantus, also called Talos, a massive walking statue who emerges from the sea and attacks Agamen Volcanic Island.
• Lizard Folk: Saurians are a returning enemy in this game, acting as they did in the original; tough and wielding fishing spears as weapons, but becoming weaker if you cut off their tails. The game introduces new relatives to them in the form of Asps and Rattlers.
• Losing Your Head: Hitting the Golem's head hard enough will knock it off its body, rendering its Beam Spam near useless for the remainder of the fight. Its now-headless body will still try to smack you around, though.
  • Invoked for the Medusa. During its boss fight, attacking its head enough will behead her, killing her instantly and rewarding the player with a Medusa Head item, which allows you to equip it like a lantern. Beheading her while she has near-full health will instead award a "Preserved" Head which lasts significantly longer. You can use these Medusa Heads to instantly turn any target to stone (though you won't receive any item drops). However, the longer it is used or in your inventory overtime, the more it loses power until it becomes "decayed", rendering it useless.
• Lovecraft Lite: In the True Ending, the true nature of the Dragon's Dogma multiverse is revealed to be a Cosmic Horror Story of sorts. The Pathfinder exposits that greater will grew tired of seeing worlds consumed by oblivion, and thus gave oblivion the identity and role of the Dragon as part of a cosmic cycle called the Dragon's Dogma. The Dragon chooses an Arisen to oppose it and determine the fate of the world, with the pawns also being manifested from the essence of oblivion to ensure the chosen Arisen sticks to the script. If any of the players deviate from the Cycle, however, the Pathfinder condemns the the world to be destroyed by oblivion in the form of the Brine and multiple Dragons, with any pawns being corrupted by Dragonsplague and transformed into lesser dragons themselves. However, with the help of their main pawn—able to resist the Dragonsplague's corruption by sheer loyalty and strength of will—the Arisen is able to use the Empowered Godsbane Blade to slay the Pathfinder's Dragon form and put an end to the cycle once and for all.
• Luminescent Blush: Similar to the first game, characters with high affinity for you with have their a pink blush on their cheeks.
• Mage Marksman: Magick Archer returns from the previous game, focusing only on their magick bow this time.
• Magic Knight: Replacing the Mystic Knight Prestige Class is the Mystic Spearhand, which uses a Duospear in combination with magic and uses their magic to either stun enemies or close in on them.
• Magikarp Power: Mystic Spearhand at first is a bit clunky. It is a melee focused class with no baked in defensive ability. It can't block like Fighter, dodge like Thief, and doesn't have the parry or stagger resistance of Warrior. At first, you need to pay attention to your surroundings as if you find yourself in an awkward position, there will be little you can do to protect yourself. Your only measure of protecting yourself is the charged version of your magic bolts which will stun a small enemy and slow a larger one. However, as the class unlocks multiple options, it gains a ton of flexibility. The stun bolt can be upgraded to spread to nearby enemies, you quickly unlock a spell which creates little bolts to do damage at range, a jump attack that serves as sort of a parry (the upgraded version doing extra damage when used to avoid an attack), a spell that lets you telekinetically throw small objects and enemies at other enemies, and ultimately a shield spell that freely protects you for a short period of time. With all of this, the class gains a great amount of flexibility to fit most situations.
• Mechanically Unusual Class:
  • The Trickster has little to no direct offensive capabilities and instead makes use of their magical censer to create illusions to trick enemies, such as a decoy to draw aggro or fake surfaces and walls. The default attack by itself does negligible damage and is instead used to Draw Aggro. They can combine these to bait enemies into plummeting off of cliffs in an attempt to attack a decoy. They can also cast powerful buffs on their pawns, letting them dole out heavy damage while enemies are distracted by their illusions, as well as use an astral projection to get the lay of the land and remotely cast some illusions.
  • The Warfarer is capable of using every weapon in the game, as well as swapping between weapons on the fly for otherwise impossible combination abilities, such as using a Mage's ice spell to both strike an opponent and create footing from which to launch an aerial attack after switching to a Warrior's greatsword. However, the Warfarer's base stats are significantly reduced in comparison to other classes, meaning care is needed for which weapon is paired with what for the occasion. In addition, Warfarers run on Magikarp Power in that they only have access to abilities learned from other vocations, so a vocation that is seldom-used and low-rank will offer little to the Warfarer; but taking the time and effort to rank up your other vocations will give you a great deal of versatility.
• Medusa: One of the many new enemies introduced in this game. It has scaly skin and hair made out of black snakes with glowing red eyes. You get a front-row seat of what it can do in the gaol when it turns a group of Pawns and guards into stone, before you take it on as part of the tutorial. Much later in the game, she can be fought again as an Optional Boss. Beheading a Medusa will award you with her severed head, which can be equipped like a lantern to unleash its petrification power on a target until it runs out of power.
• Multiple Endings: There are four endings in total: the False Good Ending, the True Ending, and two bad endings.
  • The bad endings are triggered when you choose to flee from the Dragon and sacrifice your beloved to the dragon in exchange for the throne of Vernworth. The second bad ending is triggered if you die during the fight with the Pathfinder during the credits, with the Arisen awakening in a ruined world.
  • The False Good Ending is triggered when you elect to fight the Dragon and do not stab yourself with the Godsbane Blade. After slaying the Dragon, you are taken to the throne room of Vernworth where you can sit on the throne or talk to the Pathfinder to send you back in time to when you are on the back of the Dragon. Electing to sit on the throne and letting the credits roll will end the game and reloading your save will take you back to this point.
  • The path for the True Ending is set when you choose to stab yourself with the Godsbane Blade while on the back of the Dragon in an effort to reject the cycle, sending you both plummeting into the Brine and sending you into the Unmoored World. Persevering through the myriad trials of the Unmoored World and evacuating all the cities and settlements will cause the Pathfinder to take matters into his own hands, transforming into a new Dragon to destroy the world. The Arisen scales his back before reaching the heart, where they plunge the Godsbane Blade into them and free the world from the cycle at the cost of their life.
• Mysterious Stranger: Every now and again, the Arisen encounters a strange hooded figure called the Pathfinder. Nothing is known about them at first, save that they cannot be seen by other individuals and can influence pawns. As it happens, they are actually the game's Big Bad.
• Necromancer: The Gorechimera is very much depicted to be an undead Chimera this time around, as when it is first encountered the goat casts a spell to reanimate the lion, while the snake tail drags limply on the ground until the goat casts a second spell to revive it as well. The goat also looks far more ghostly, with glowing red eyes, shaggy white fur, and tumorous growths in place of horns.
• Non-Indicative Name: Despite what its name may indicate (especially for veterans of the first game who may be used to the Eternal Ferrystone), the Eternal Wakestone is a single-use item and not eternal in the slightest.
• Our Dragons Are Different:
  • The titular Dragon is much akin to Grigori from the first Dragon's Dogma, being an enormous, six-limbed red-scaled wyrm who brings calamity to the world and is responsible for creating the Arisen. Unlike Grigori, this game's Dragon goes unnamed.
  • Drakes return as some of the tougher boss monsters in the overworld, though Wyrms and Wyverns are absent. They are more of a Composite Character of the three rather than being solely based on the original Drake, as while they breathe fire, they are also keen to going into the air and have gained very potent spellcasting, especially when at low health. They are also the origin of the dragonsplague, and may infect Pawns with it if they are caught by their possession attack. Like in the first game, there is a connection between them and the Arisen, where they refer to the player as their "silent-hearted kin", though the exact nature of it is left ambiguous.
  • This game introduces a new type of draconic boss called the Lesser Dragon, who resembles a sickened Drake covered in pustules and buboes who, on top of breathing fire, also vomits out out a poisonous liquid from its mouth. Rather than a heart, the player must instead attack said pustules until they burst in order to weaken the monster. It is first seen attacking Melve, and Sigurd's mission is to hunt it down and slay it. More of them can be found as overworld bosses in the Unmoored World.
  • Once the player reaches the Unmoored World, they must fight dragons created out of the Brine to stop the end of the world from progressing. These dragons, called Purgeners, come in two forms; a conventional six-limbed dragon with an enormous nasal horn, and a massive serpent, one of which is so large that it can only be killed in a Behemoth Battle with the Gigantus.
• Our Elves Are Different: Elves as a separate species from humans make their appearance in this game. They live in a secluded grove called the Sacred Arbor, where they congregate around a giant tree called the Arborheart. They speak in an unique language which cannot be understood (and even affects store menus for their vendors) unless the player is accompanied by a Pawn with the Woodland Wordsmith specialization.
• Our Goblins Are Different: Goblins and Hobgoblins return as common enemies in this game, generally behaving as they did in the original Dragon's Dogma. They are now accompanied by new relatives; Choppers are Goblins who camouflage in heavy green foliage to ambush the player, while Knackers are a stronger form of Hobgoblin who is prolific in Battahl.
• Our Gryphons Are Different: Griffins return as boss monsters in this game. Like in the original, their wings generate lightning and they can be knocked out of the air by setting them on fire. They are much more prolific in this game than they were in the original Dragon's Dogma and will regularly ambush the player from the skies. They particularly like attacking areas populated by oxen, and if left alone, they sometimes can be seen catching an ox and flying off with them. However, their Underground Monkey counterpart, the Cockatrice, is noticeably missing from this game.
• Our Minotaurs Are Different: Minotaurs are one of the new types of boss enemies. Unlike the Eliminators from the previous game, who were undead dressed to invoke the imagery of minotaurs, these are the real deal. They use axes and can be found as overworld encounters. Particularly, these Minotaurs resemble humanoid oxen as opposed to simply bulls, making them closer to the various oxen who inhabit the world. Once the player reaches Battahl, they can also encounter stronger counterparts called Goreminotaurs.
• Our Ogres Are Hungrier: Ogres are a returning enemy from the original game, still having the mechanic of focusing on female enemies. They are much more prolific in the overworld than in the first Dragon's Dogma, and can notably be found even during daytime, where in the original game they were only found at night or in caves. A stronger counterpart called the Grim Ogre can be found in Battahl, having huge shaggy hair and essentially serving as an equivalent to the Elder Ogres from Dark Arisen.
• Our Sphinxes Are Different: One of the new bosses is the Sphinx, completely redesigned in comparison to her appearance in Dragon's Dogma Online. She is an Optional Boss hidden in the game's open world that requires the player to actively search around to find her. She gives out riddles to be solved, rewarding the player with items on success but will leave forever if they fail. Her attacks include shooting magical projectiles from her wings. Unlike the majority of the game's monsters, she is an Unique Enemy and will not respawn if slain.
• Out-of-Character Alert: Pawns are known for their Undying Loyalty to the Arisen. If they become arrogant, disobedient, or just rude, especially after fighting a dragon or drake, they are infected with dragonsplague.
• Random Encounters: Monster attacks can occur at any time in select cities. For instance, you could find a group of wolves, or even a cyclops, wreaking havoc in Vermund.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Pawns afflicted with dragonsplague gain glowing red eyes. On the one hand, they're stronger than your average pawn, but on the other hand, they are a walking time bomb waiting to go off.
  • Some enemy variants, such as Grim Ogres and Goreminotaurs, have red eyes to denote their strength from their weaker brethren.
• Red Sky, Take Warning: In the path of the true ending, choosing to use the Godsbane Blade on yourself rather than the dragon and defying the Pathfinder's will leads to the latter deciding to wipe the slate clean and use the Brine to destroy the world, infesting it with monsters and dragons. As a consequence of this, the skies turn red for the remainder of the game.
• Relationship Values: The affinity system returns with changes made to it such that NP Cs with whom you have high affinity will occasionally leave behind gifts at your homes. And as with the first game, it also determines who the Dragon kidnaps at the end of the main questline. However, your main Pawn now has an affinity value that you can increase through different actions such as talking with them, giving them a high-five after a fight or giving them a new haircut. High affinity changes the Pawn's gestures, has them give heartfelt comments to the Arisen and even say a special dialogue to the Arisen during the True Final Boss fight.
• Savage Wolves:
  • Wolves return as common enemies, hunting in packs as usual, though Pawns don't really note on that part anymore. Battahl has stronger relatives called Redwolves, who are a tad bigger than regular wolves.
  • Both Garms and Wargs return from Dark Arisen, albeit with significant adjustments. Garms have lost their Breath Weapon but can now chomp down and maul the player on the spot, and Wargs were changed from a poisonous version of wolves into an alternate to the Garm.
• Shout-Out: There's an achievement/trophy named "Off with Its Head!" in reference to the Queen of Hearts' catchphrase from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
• Solo Sequence: A handful of areas require the Arisen to go it alone without their pawns. The castle and royal grounds of Vernworth, for instance, forbids entry to pawns. Later on, your pawns will decline to follow you there because the fake Sovran has a means by which to usurp control over pawns.
• Suicidal "Gotcha!": As the Arisen and Rook escape from the gaol guards near the beginning of the game, they end up jumping off a cliff towards the ocean, only to reappear latched onto a Griffin that then carries them all the way to north Vermund where it gets shot by a ballista.
• Super Drowning Skills: Like in the previous game, the Brine menaces the waters of the game's world: anyone that wanders too far into any body of water is instantly claimed by the Brine and dragged down to a watery grave. The player character, at least, will respawn on dry land with only a modest loss of HP. Conversely, Pawns that are drowned by the Brine are forfeit, and monsters and NPCs are similarly killed instantly.
• Super Smoke: The Trickster Vocation makes use of smoke from a magical Censer to debilitate enemies (such as tricking them into attacking each other) or to buff their Pawns.
• There Can Be Only One: The main story has you chosen as the next Arisen by the Dragon after it takes your heart, and that Arisen is the only one who can slay the dragon. The problem is that there is a pretender due to the machinations of Queen Regent Disa. Before your arrival, there have been reports of other "pretenders" executed. That said, it may also refer that only one active exists in a given world. Throughout your journey, you will find other people with scars on their chests. Some claim to have more or less failed in defeating the dragon, causing another person to be chosen.
• Timed Mission:
  • Some quests are time-sensitive, marked by an hourglass in the list. If you take too long, there is a good chance you will see a potentially grim outcome, if not fail a quest.
  • The endgame has a soft time limit of approximately 7 rests at an inn or campfire, which can be extended by defeating specific bosses at regions indicated by columns of light. Afterwards, it will become impossible to rest or pass time, so your ability to restore vitality and respawn monsters for more experience will be similarly stymied.
• Title Drop:
  • The Fighter sword, Dragon's Dogma, returns as a weapon you can get from the Dragonforged in the post game. There's even an achievement tied to getting it.
  • Both the Dragon and the Pathfinder drop the title during their respective confrontations at the end of the game.
• Too Awesome to Use: The Unmaking Arrow is this game's equivalent of the first game's Maker's Finger; having the similar function of killing the target in one hit, including dragons. It has a similar drawback as well; the moment you fire it, the game will immediately create a save so that it will be gone the next time you attempt to reload (regardless of whether the arrow hit or missed). The game nudges you into using one of these on the Sphinx. You are rewarded with an Unmaking Arrow from one of her riddles, but there will be one chest left behind that you cannot open when you clear all of them, as the Sphinx will shortly fly away, leaving the game forever. The player is encouraged to fire the arrow at her before she leaves, whereupon she will drop the key to the last chest, which contains the Eternal Wakestone.
• Uneven Hybrid: Human-Beastren relationships are frowned upon by the people of Vermund because any child of such a union is invariably born a Beastren themselves, and they fear this will eventually lead to a demographic crisis or a takeover by the predominantly Beastren nation of Battahl. One character mentions that it's theoretically possible for it to result in a human child as well, but that it must be impossibly rare and he's personally never seen it happen. It's eventually revealed that Wilhelmina's mother was a Beastren, and she looks like an ordinary human aside from her left eye having a slit pupil, which she keeps hidden beneath her hair.
• Unique Enemy:
  • Downplayed with the Medusa, as while there is only a single one in the entire world map, she respawns like other boss monsters after several days.
  • Played straight with the Sphinx, if you pick a fight with her. She is a completely unique boss fight that can only be done once per playthrough.
• The Virus: The Dragonsplague, a contagious disease-like condition that infects pawns as they travel between worlds. Afflicted pawns are noted to gain greater performance but become bossy and assertive, and according to folklore, when the symptoms reach a terminal stage, it will result in devastating calamity. Said calamity causes the afflicted pawn to kill everyone in the nearby vicinity before being forcibly returned to beyond the Rift; that is, if left unchecked.
• Video Game Stealing: The Thief vocation has Pilfer, and its upgrade Plunder, that allows them to steal items from enemies and other characters.
• Warp Whistle:
  • Ferrystones make a return from the first game, requiring each to instantly travel to an active Portcrystal (either one fixed in a city/town or one you can set yourself as a quest reward).
  • Oxcarts are the newest form of fast travel, but the process is very downplayed. They are no faster than your own two feet; in fact, they are even slower than that. However, you can simply doze off and you'll soon wake up to your destination with time passed. There are only three caveats to keep in mind. First, each cart has a fixed route to and from major cities or towns (mainly Melve, Vernworth, the Checkpoint Rest Town, and Bakbattahl). Second, you can only either ride from the starting point early in the morning (they'll refuse late into the night), or meet a traveling cart along your route. The third and most important one is that enemies are likely to ambush you at any time and, should they destroy the cart, you'll be forced to traverse the rest of the way on foot.
• Weak, but Skilled: The Warfarer vocations MO. It allows you to swap between 2-3 weapons. Naturally, this gives you a LOT of flexibility in terms of skill loadout. The tradeoff is that your base stats are lower than any other dedicated vocation, so your raw damage will be reduced. Also, if you add the Rearmament master skill, you'll be limited to 3 other skills, those only usable when you have the corresponding weapon equipped.
• We Only Have One Chance: You will have only one chance for each riddle the Sphinx gives you. Each success will grant a reward, but she will leave the game if you fail even one of them. Any remaining rewards afterwards will be locked out.
• Wham Episode: The endgame in spades. The Unmoored World occurs as a result of the Arisen defying the Pathfinder, who is none too happy that his "chosen" is going against "the script" and decides to wipe the slate clean, ordering the Brine to spawn monsters and destroy the world. As a result, all bodies of water dry up, creating new areas to explore...including the ruins of what looks to be Gran Soren, implying that the events of the first game transpired in this world as well, only it did not fair nearly as well...

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