Trivia / Dragon's Dogma

• Acclaimed Flop: The game was well received but due to the rising popularity of Western RPGs at the time, Capcom expected the game to sell up to 10 million units in a few years, the game only sold between 500.000 to 700.000 units in its first year due to releasing in a packed year. However, its dedicated fanbase led to Capcom releasing a PC port two years later, which sold beyond Capcom's expectations and later led to ports to Playstation 4/Xbox One, along with Nintendo Switch.
• Creator's Oddball: Hideaki Itsuno's early career is mostly associated with Fighting Games, and then he became a recurring director for at least three installments of the Devil May Cry franchise before this game was released. Devil May Cry is an Urban Fantasy Demon Slaying franchise with an emphasis on fast-paced Stylish Action and linear level designs but without any obvious RPG elements. On the other hand, Dragon's Dogma is a medieval fantasy open-world Role-Playing Game which has many gameplay mechanics that aren't in his prior fighting game and DMC projects.
• Newbie Boom: The long Sequel Gap and pre-release marketing from gaming news outlets made Dragon's Dogma II the first exposure of many gamers to the Dragon's Dogma franchise. DD2 had a rough day one launch, but also because of it, Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen has been receiving more retroactive recognition, then an influx of positive reviews and concurrent players on Steam as of March 2024.
• Role Reprise: David Lodge returns in the Netflix animated series to lend his voice to the Dragon.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: The PC version of Dragon's Dogma could not include the Berserk weapons and armor due to licensing restrictions. Likewise, outside of a mod for the PC version, all versions of Dark Arisen lack "Into Free -Dangan-" as the intro music.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Capcom really wanted the game to launch a franchise on par with the Western RPGs of the time but the game sold poorly in the West on release, causing the possible sequel to be turned into Deep Down (which became Vaporware), and Dragon's Dogma Online to be only released in Japan. A short CGI Anime series was released in 2020, but it has very little to do with the game outside of a few elements. It took until June 2022 for the franchise to continue with the announcement of Dragon's Dogma II.
  • There were supposed to be extra classes such as a Monk, extra races such as Beastmen and Elves, and even some characters had different designs according to the art book. However, Orcs and Elves are in Dragon's Dogma Online. The game's world was also meant to be much bigger, with a special area known as Dragon Isle where the Arisen would have their final encounter with the dragon. There was also going to be a visible moon at night.

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