Dark Arisen reconciles Dragon’s Dogma 2 with its players

In March 2024, Dragon’s Dogma 2 launched to praise from critics and boos from Steam players. Two and a half years later, its Dark Arisen expansion brings both camps together. An 85 average on OpenCritic and 87% positive reviews on Steam, while the base game is still stuck at Mixed. The person behind this turnaround already rescued the first game, back in 2013.

Critics and players finally agree on Dark Arisen

Released on October 8 on PC, PS5, Xbox Series and Switch 2, the expansion has 46 reviews on OpenCritic, with an average of 85 and 93% of critics recommending it. Metacritic shows 83 on PS5, 85 on PC and 88 on Switch 2. Scores range from 10/10 at DualShockers to 3.5/5 at RPGamer, with a large majority between 8 and 9.

The real change is on the player side. On October 11, the expansion’s Steam page shows 675 reviews, 586 of them positive, or 87%. The base game stays at Mixed with 63% favorable reviews out of more than 118,000. The gap tells the game’s story: a world everyone loved, dragged down at launch by its PC performance and a poorly received microtransaction store.

The most helpful review on the page sums up the mood. Its author, Ripley, writes: “Once again, history repeats itself with an expansion named Dark Arisen fixing the game named Dragon’s Dogma.”

Kento Kinoshita, the director of both Dark Arisens

Ripley’s line hits the mark. In 2013, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen added Bitterblack Isle, with tougher enemies and deeper loot, and turned a good game into a cult one. Its director, Kento Kinoshita, is back in charge for the sequel’s expansion, as Capcom confirmed in June. Hideaki Itsuno, the series creator and director of both main games, left Capcom in August 2024, five months after Dragon’s Dogma 2 came out.

Kinoshita did not remake Bitterblack. The expansion takes place in Norgan, an abandoned northern region, snow-covered and more vertical than the rest of the world, with climbing hooks that open shortcuts. Twelve dungeons, the Lost Rites, are scattered across it. They reward gear and flames that activate Obelisks, sources of permanent bonuses. Vocations can now equip up to six combat skills. And players have adopted a new companion, a wolf named Freki, which you can pet.

The complaints: the game goes softer

The more nuanced reviews agree on one point: the expansion makes Dragon’s Dogma 2 more comfortable, at the cost of part of its character. At GameSpot, Richard Wakeling (8/10) writes about liking “this softened version of the game a little less” than before, while still finding what made the original appealing.

James Galizio, for RPG Site (8/10), goes further. Relics, the expansion’s new gear, quickly outclass all base game equipment, even blacksmith-upgraded pieces, and cannot be upgraded themselves. Their stats are rolled at random, and the loop of relics and climbing hooks makes exploration less surprising. The verdict: the expansion is well worth playing, especially for a new player, but it “is nowhere near as memorable as the first game’s Dark Arisen.”

Wccftech (8.5/10) praises a better structured story and more likable characters, but finds that combat remains “a chaotic, unorganized mess,” fun but with no tactical depth. Several reviews also note that the base game’s core flaws have not moved, such as climbing large creatures.

The expansion costs launch buyers more

A negative review in Chinese, among the most upvoted on the Steam page, raises a point the press barely covered: price. On the French Steam store, the expansion alone costs 29.99 euros. The bundle with the base game and the expansion costs 49.99 euros, while the base game alone is listed at 39.99 euros. A new player therefore gets everything for 20 euros more than the expansion alone.

Those who bought the game at launch, sometimes in the Deluxe Edition, pay 29.99 euros for the expansion with no complete-the-set discount for what they already own. Nothing illegal or unusual, but the 355 votes backing that review show it does not go down well. On Switch 2, where the game arrives for the first time, the bundle sells as a full game: Nintendo Life gives it 9/10 and points out that it runs better on Nintendo’s console than it did on PS5 at launch.

If you have never launched Dragon’s Dogma 2, the 49.99 euro bundle is the best way in today: a game fixed by two years of updates, plus an expansion that critics and players recommend. If you dropped it in 2024, Dark Arisen is the best reason to return, as long as you accept an adventure a little more guided than the original.