In an astounding, and absolutely baffling move, Capcom has ruined their latest release, the highly anticipated Dragon’s Dogma 2, with microtransactions.
As reported by Windows Central’s Jez Corden, Steam users got the first whiff of what was afoot when they saw the microtransactions page for the game on its own Steam page. The items being sold can be found in game, but they are incredibly rare.
But what’s really important is that the items they chose to be microtransactions absolutely ruins the balance of the game. For example, Portcrystals enable fast travel points. Rift Crystals are needed for the core game mechanic of hiring other players’ Pawns. Art of Metamorphosis change your character’s appearance. Wakestones bring NPCs back from the dead, and you’ll need them if you want those NPCs because if you wait too long they’ll be gone completely. Explorer’s Camping Kits weigh less than your normal gear, making your travel faster, and so forth.
It remains to be seen if these microtransactions will ruin the game at its core, but let’s look at Art of Metamorphosis. Because there’s a DLC to change your character appearance, Capcom doesn’t allow you to change how your character looks after you leave the creation screen at the start. If you try to delete your save to start over, your cloud save will become inaccessible as a result.
As I had mentioned, you will run into Art of Metamorphosis in the regular game, but Capcom took this feature that you may have taken for granted in other games, and made it a giant source of frustration in Dragon’s Dogma 2.
It is possible to play through the game without buying any of these items; in fact it looks like Dragon’s Dogma 2’s MetaCritic is built on reviews from players who didn’t get them. But seeing how Capcom has taken away some features to make them DLC, these actions should absolutely be taken as obnoxiously anti-consumer.
Jez claims that Capcom did not hide these microtransactions from him, and they were explained in the review guide which was provided as an online link. But again, noting that no reviews seem to have brought up these microtransactions, and the title has some 10/10 scores without that context, there’s still red flags that Capcom pulled a fast one on consumers here.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is now available to play on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Windows via Steam. But you may not want to buy it, at least not right now, with this hanging over the title.
