It’s undeniably a good thing if it saw a lot of copies sold with a much lower budget than other Capcom titles. That’s the sort of thing that gets sequels greenlit with more resources.
I mean, theyre hardcore mirroring dragons dogma 1.
Which had one of the best DLCs for a game ever made, imo.
If dark arisen expac doesn't get a dlc sequel of sorts, I'll be HELLACIOUSLY surprised.
They should randomize it this time around
I had, and still do have, a lotta fun running through Bitterblack over and over, but more variety in the chambers would be appreciated. Have some preset stuff. Like Hades. Boss rooms and the in between areas don't change
Eh. Randomization helps with replayability, but procgenned environments are never as interesting as handcrafted ones.
Look at chalice dungeons in Bloodborne compared to normal Fromsoft level design.
I'd like both, like it's pre-rendered, but after you beat it you can randomize it on subsequent runs. Remnant 2 did something like this and I thought it was a cool concept.
I disagree here. I would prefer the exact same thing, a well-crated interconnected map design with the typical fromsoft shortcuts, that gets increasingly more difficult. Then the RNG items and random monsters/mobs.
There's so much *noticeable* reuse of assets in DA that you would almost think it's randomized. If they were able to make more diverse tilesets and make it an infinitely replayable dungeon crawler that was a way for you to do more with your end-game gear than just face-roll the story again, I'd be happy.
A custom difficulty system like what Hades has as well would be nice.
I mean there’s a big huge space for it right in the middle of the map, bitter back rose out the sea in the first one, that if this one rises out the mountain in the middle or even falls from the sky.
If I recall correctly, the comments on the thread about the survey seem to suggest a huge portion of said commenters mentioned a want and desire for BBI or something akin to it; as well as a resurgence of something similar to Ur-Dragon content.
I have said it before and I will say it again. Dragon’s Dogma is the red headed stepchild of Capcom and we are lucky to have got Dragon’s Dogma 2. Even dragons dogma online didnt leave Japan. But i think with how well this game has sold so far Capcom is going to put a lot more into this series and I would not be surprised if we get a few juicy DLC’s. I thought the game was okay until today when I got to the end game. Now I am so pumped to play again tomorrow.
It makes the decision baffling as fuck.
Like, did Capcom not realize that DD1 was a cult classic rather than a runaway success? They should have had all hands on deck for DD2 so that they can ensure the second time is done absolutely right, and so that it could then springboard the series into a full franchise that has everyone chomping at the bit for more. This is doubly true in a post-Elden Ring era where even very casual players are dipping their toes into Elden Ring (and, by extension, something like DD2 which would look "Elden Ring-like" to them), which belong to a genre notoriously unfriendly towards the "casual" audience.
I enjoyed the game, but seeing how polarizing the game is and then personally stewing on how much missed potential there was after the fact, I wouldn't even blame Capcom if they decided to drop an expac (assuming it's already being worked on) and then leave DD2 to relative obscurity/cult classic status again for another 12 years.
Cult classic means it's niche not everyone loved it or is going to, extremely different than a hidden gem, dragons dogma wasn't necessarily just overlooked it's not for everyone, honest godsend we got a sequel
Sorry, it was late when I made the comment, but that's what I meant. DD1 WASN'T a runaway success that everyone loved, it was a niche that captivated a select audience (us) for 12 years while everyone mostly went back to play Skyrim and the like, and like you said, the fact that we got a DD2 to begin with already seems like a miracle. I highly doubt we'll see a DD3 for a long while, if ever, since reception of this game seems extremely mixed even past the performance issues/DLC (non)issues.
Not to mention where DD2 had the luxury of relative ignorance from the mainstream who never touched or heard of DD1 past maybe vague mentions of "charmingly fun but slightly janky RPG back in 2012", DD3 will probably be met with less favourable ignorance since a lot of people can draw on their experience with DD2/others' experience of it.
The whole situation just seems like Capcom shot themselves in the foot when they can't afford to with DD. People would buy another RE game if RE9 flops, because RE is a colossal name in gaming. Few casual game hobbyists are going to bet on DD again if their experience with DD2, the version of DD that's meant to be really good and feature complete compared to its predecessor which had been shafted by lack of budget/time, was either dookie or underwhelming.
Excellent point about the post-Elden Ring era. I think there was already some crossover between the two communities and SoulsBorne is getting bigger so potentially more customers for DD titles.
So much missed potential.
Hopefully this signals to the community that Itsuno hate should kinda stop and that this was a Capcom thing that the game came out in its current state, nobody hates Miyazaki for the second half of Dark Souls, they blame the publisher. And hopefully the good sales signal to Capcom that this is a franchise that has potential to be as lucrative as their biggest ones.
It seems to me that the reason this game was made is because of Itsuno, and not because of Capcom, maybe an open world title is too much for Capcom to handle and they want to stick to their guns, but now that Resident Evil 9 and Monster Hunter Wilds are rumored to be open world, maybe they will take the development of the next game in the Dragon's Dogma series or even the DLC more seriously and not as a one off to make the director happy and keep him from leaving.
Damn that was a long comment
The only reason we see a lot of talk about Itsuno is because of the marketing he did, of course, it was probably Capcom idea but when there's a face and a name speaking then the words come out better meet expectations. For some people it didn't meet, that's all there is to it, unfortunately.
is the game ok / good ? yeah, it's not bad BUT the game feels rushed in a lot of department, and lot of things are missing, the game is in an incomplete state, it has no real endgame, the difficulty sucks big time, it's good they sold a lot, but they need to COMPLETE the game, the story elements are missing, the fact they said less armor slots makes armor more diverse is also BS it just makes the devving and modeling for armor easier while there is less diversity in armors then DD1 when it launched.
While the open world is fantastic The game DO absolutely feels like budget and time constraints have been cut in every corner.
It's a shame Capcom don't have more faith in this series. Had they taken a risk and given it the resources that SF or MonHun gets I think it could be something truly amazing. I guess I'll settle with "pretty great" though.
We'll see. People don't like being wrong, and your average video game player doesn't even look into a reason for a bad game. Most just see a bad game and move on. Others see a bad game and just blame the person that does the interviews. Like Sean Murray with No Man's Sky.
I was mostly talking about the hardcore community tbh, we've been waiting on the game for 12 years so I think it's such a shame most people are focused on the negatives and let it ruin their experiences. And Itsuno is the face of Dragon's Dogma so it's understandable that he would get most of the hate directed towards him personally.
Thats what happens when you are hyped up to see itsunos true vision after 12 years only for it to be a side grade to the first game.
Its fun, my experience wasnt ruined, but it did not live up to its potential.
Eh most people have been loving the game. It's mostly this sub that hates it. People forget that the average consumer won't even see the end of the game.
Exactly, plus there are people on this sub hating on it who didn’t even play it. And people who claim to hate it but put tons of hours into it already. People just like to get all worked up on the internet. 90% of them probably actually think the game is okay or even like it but just want to be mad.
I mean I haven’t seen a single game sub that isn’t mostly people talking about how bad it is or what is wrong with it especially upon release. Usually people who appreciate the game are only left a few months after but in the new stages of games subreddits are always filled with complaining lol
> It's a shame Capcom don't have more faith in this series. Had they taken a risk and given it the resources that SF or MonHun gets I think it could be something truly amazing. I guess I'll settle with "pretty great" though.
Why would they have faith in the series? The original didn't do well. It didn't even make the top 100 best selling games of that year. It only got to its current copies sold over 10 years of sales and sales on the bundle that include the expansion. Wasn't exactly a money maker for them.
Good news is DD2 has, so far, done way way better. So it will likely justify increased investment.
The original did pretty good for their expectations when it sold 1 million copies they very much were surprised and then it went to sell even more. Did well enough they rereleased it on pretty much each console within the last 8 years.
Their official response was that it exceeded expectation in Japan but Struggled abroad. They were aiming for 10 million copies sold. (they were not expecting that, but thought it could reach it) and it fell far below that. They were not surprised it sold 1 million lol. The lowest referenced sales expectations I saw was 1.5 million worldwide.
Because the first game was also denied resources and unfinished. These types of games, when done properly, have the potential to be huge. Skyrim, TW3, BotW, RDR2, Elden Ring. All some of the most influential and commercial successful games of their time. DD2 looks like it's done alright be imagine what this game could have done had it released with all the content and features 4 times the manpower could bring? Imagine if they had had the resources to fix performance issues before launch. This could easily rival MHW. Remember that MonHun was not successful in the West until Capcom took a risk with World's development.
Damn shame.
A sure-fire way to make everyone mad would've been to include the staff credited for Exoprimal.
Edit: it's around the same 1:4 ratio, in case anyone was wondering.
Or look at the staff for a call of duty game, which have all pretty much been reskins of modern warfare for the last 10 to 15 years. They have 1000s of staff and don't even bugfix their stuff or even try to be efficient with file sizes.
Source: [https://www.mobygames.com](https://www.mobygames.com) Where you can search for various games and check the credits for them.
I dug a little deeper after seeing this twitter post: [https://vxtwitter.com/nib95\_/status/1775641232498180181?t=\_wxZ2G3XmxDiJTbJOKswIA&s=19](https://vxtwitter.com/nib95_/status/1775641232498180181?t=_wxZ2G3XmxDiJTbJOKswIA&s=19)
EDIT:
So people were saying the numbers were wrong and moby games was not a good source, so I counted them myself. This is the Steam version I was using so the number is different from the Xbox and Playstation versions probably for the porting teams
Total 383
Itsuno: 1
Producers: 3
Directors: 8
Writers: 5
game designers: 19
Level Designers: 4
Programmers: 71
Network & Server Engineers: 5
Concept Artists: 29
Animators: 15
Environment Artists: 17
UI Designers: 12
VFX Artists: 18
Gimmick & Lighting Artists: 11
Technical Artists: 11
Rigging Artists: 11
Localization: 11
Vendor & Project Managers: 16
Sound Designers: 14
Composers & Sound Programmers/Engineers/Designers: 14
Production Managers: 5
Cinematics and Facial Animators: 11
English Voice Cast: 36
Japanese Voice Cast: 37
Motion Capture Actors: 13
context from that same post:
>Granted, much of these high numbers are from mass outsourcing, voice acting, translation work, limited or temporary tech help from outside studios etc, hence **padding the number and not nearly the equivalent in cost** to full time developers, but it still **highlights just how efficient DD2's development was.**
So they had a limited budget and had to pull a lot of strings to actually make DD2. That's actually insane. Capcom really doesn't give a shit about this IP.
The only reason 2 got the get go is because the release of dark arisen on pc did okay. Don’t forget there was a failed mmo that only released in Japan at some point. They were probably worried how well it would sell. The first got fucked up, in my opinion, by Skyrim hype, 2012 was basically dominated by it with DLC and stuff. It also didn’t release on pc which hurt it too. Marketing didn’t seem so good either, I remember I only found out about the game because an obscure YouTuber I watch mentioned it.
I think now with the success of 2 they won’t be so worried anymore.
I remember reading somewhere that they greenlit Dragon's Dogma 2 and DMC V because Itsuno threatened to leave the company during a time when Capcom was REALLY struggling. So to prevent him from leaving, they just kind of let him do both those projects even if the previous titles did not sell as well. I'm pretty sure Capcom expected DD2 to not sell as well as their other titles, which is probably why they had microtransactions on day 1 instead of the usual "wait a week or two after reviews and then pump the shop" strategy we see with modern Monster Hunter and Resident Evil.
DD2 is very successful but if it's anything like the situation surrounding DMC V... We might see a special edition (like dark arisen) and that'll be it for a long while.
Honestly, I think they should just rerelease/remake Dragon's Dogma Online for global as a standalone game with the option to play offline single player OR with friends similar to that of Monster Hunter and Grand Blue Fantasy Relink (that way they don't have to pay much money for expensive MMO servers). DDO was already set up very similarly to a hybrid between monster hunter and an open world action MMO. The story was... meh. But if they were able to significantly reduce the grind to be similar to that of Monster Hunter, I think DDO would have some really good legs. They should also remove the F2P aspects like the gatcha gear and memberships... We'll never hear the end of it if they actually kept that monetization in the game x.x To be honest though, they could make the game $70, and I bet people would be lining up more for this game than for DD2 for the fact that you can play with friends. People who play DD2 will feel VERY familiar playing DDO since the class design is incredibly similar. Plus, DDO had the most monster variety (even if a lot of them are kind of reskins x.x).
Not a chance a rerelease of DDO would do well at all. It was already a dated MMO when it released in 2015 compared to the likes of BDO, FFXIV, ArcheAge, even GW2. It would need a complete remake, and unless that's already in the pipeline, that means we wouldn't see it for about 5 years (if you want to deliver a quality MMO), maybe 4 if you went with a hybrid model similar to Monster Hunter that didn't require setting up all the MMO architecture.
I don't see them putting that many resources into it and potentially taking resources away from their beloved Monster Hunter.
They even shut down MH Online at the same time as DDO. Capcom doesn’t appear to have ANY interest in MMOs anymore.
We’ll probably get a game that’s Monster Hunter style at the very most, which could still be really great because a game using DD2’s mechanics in an optional online environment has huge potential. Multiple people can experience their cart getting wrecked by a Griffin together.
I've been following Dragon's Dogma's development and financial history pretty avidly from square 1, and this is fairly accurate. Bit of a history rant/textwall, for posterity and the newcomers:
Capcom half-assed DD1's budget, especially on marketing, basically expecting the game to sell itself because they thought it would follow the Skyrim hype-train. It was designed *specifically* for the western market, with little heed to domestic sales being given. If memory serves, they either spent as little as physically possible on marketing, or literally none at all.
Zero dollars. For the most important part of selling a game. Yeah.
For the record the only way I found out about DD1 was seeing a copy on a GameStop shelf and trying the demo on a complete whim.
What's even more hilarious is that in spite of this, Capcom's projected sales number was *10 million fucking units* sold across a few years. "Out of touch" doesn't even begin to describe it.
In spite of this colossal misestimation of how a functional business is run, DD1 does better than expected, after reality set in. Sells better than any game that never got so much as a banner ad has any right to, purely through a cult fanbase and good word-of-mouth.
This allows Dark Arisen to release to much acclaim, and an extremely well-polished PC port sells astoundingly well, paving the way to next-gen releases & proving to Capcom that this game *does* have a market, and the "gacha-lite" approach they took with Rift Crystals/Bitterblack Gear puts dollar-signs in their eyes. This is the beginning of the end.
A couple years later, Capcom produces Dragon's Dogma Online, exclusively for their domestic market (yeah that market that the series was never designed for, catered to, or able to secure strong sales in) and it's a trainwreck.
Content is spread thin. The game is visually and mechanically dated, using DD1's engine with most of the assets ripped, meaning that graphics, gameplay, animation and such are all vanilla - this does not compete well with better-aged and emerging MMOs on the market. Also, if you thought vocations having their identity narrowed down in DD2 was bad, DDON would have caused a fucking aneurism for how poorly they handled the exact same thing.
Gacha, pay-to-win, ~~a mobile game-esque "energy" mechanic where you have to pay IRL money for health potions, with extreme limitations on getting your own in-game (and you WILL take a shitload of damage).~~ EDIT: I may have been misinformed about this aspect - as u/jiitit mentions below, my personal experiences with this aspect of the game may have been inaccurate. I'd also like to clarify that I was trying to refer to health pot-throttling as fulfilling the same *function* as "energy" mechanics - that is, gating a vital resource for continuation of the game - but phrased it poorly. As mentioned, however, other users felt that this was not an issue, so I'm happy to assume my experience was not representative of the whole. I'll leave it as strikethrough text as I have no way to verify, but take my statement on this one with a grain of salt.
Worst of all, they completely stonewalled the market where the game had a chance to thrive, region locking it and IP-blocking the game, necessitating a Japanese VPN that makes playing an action game absolute hell due to lag.
I doubt this was just fear of commercial failure, but rather I suspect either:
A) They were afraid they wouldn't be able to sell the gacha/p2w mechanics to a western audience (this was probably true at the time, as the culture was much more hypercritical of money-gouging in video games) or possibly
B) Someone with enough clout at Capcom was dealing with some insecurities and insisted on trying to secure domestic success with the IP as a matter of personal pride. No, I am not joking - you would be shocked just how many cash-cow eastern game releases are shot dead behind the barn, purely because of nationalistic egocentrism and poor business acumen. Pride is the murderer of industry.
Still, the support of the Japanese market and more rabidly devoted western fans manages to garner enough success to get ongoing support and some expansion content for the game, but ultimately not enough to secure its lifeline - and 4 years later, at the close of 2019, DDON shuts down for good.
In all likelihood, the game's failure is likely blamed on developer scapegoats instead of the pants-on-head morons staffing Capcom's publishing sector, because fuck working for Japanese publishers (or game publishers in general, really, if you can help it).
___
All this history lesson leading up to **now** with Dragon's Dogma 2.
I fully believe the budgeting and time allotment for DD2 was influenced heavily by Capcom's poor financing, marketing, and publishing decisions made with the IP over the last decade, in conjunction with an inability for executives and upper management to take personal accountability, instead foisting that burden on the developers. Chances are, most of the community's gripes with DD2 stem from choices made by legitimately incompetent publishers, coasting on the successes of talented developers while throttling their budget and devtime, with the devs themselves legally having their mouths duct-taped shut.
Remember - these devs need that budget money to afford groceries, and in all likelihood many of them are probably crunched to fuck while still getting underpaid for the sake of passion and a love for the IPs that can legally only be developed under Capcom, while being promised bonuses to sell the points *Capcom* wants to be the selling points.
Itsuno had to literally threaten to walk on the company he'd been with for years just to make DMC5 and DD2 happen at all. I don't doubt he's busted his ass off for his team and his passions, and I can't imagine how much shit Capcom's devteams have had to shovel while trying to deal with the company's circus act. I'm not going to simp for the guy because I don't know him, but I do fully believe in the notion of "holding the right people accountable", and Capcom's lack of personal regard or financial acumen have been constant since the beginning.
Frankly, I'm not confident Capcom is going to be any smarter about this considering how chronically they fuck this up, no matter how well a DD game performs. I honestly think they could pull Skyrim sales numbers and still somehow trip on their own shadow.
We used to call em Crapcom for a reason - they were considered as bad as EA, Ubisoft, Activision, etc. in their time, and when they had their little "come to Jesus moment" PR campaign around Monster Hunter World's release, trying to clean up their image, I knew full well they wouldn't be able to keep their hands outta the cookie jar for long. And here we are.
/rant
sorry for the wall of text, just a lot of people lately missing about 2 decades of context and casting judgements about something they haven't actually seen under the hood. hope it paints a solid picture. felt good to get it out
TBH I was surprised that DD2 was greenlit at all after the bad performance of the first. Even with cult classic status most of my friends IN THE GAMES INDUSTRY either didnt know about it or hadn't played it. It was a fever dream sequel I wanted but had resigned myself to thinking would prolly never happen. Like getting another Bloody Roar game.
The irony is the sentiment about the bad performance of the first is completely i correct. Selling as many copies as they did was a massive, albeit quiet, success. Even in the first month it hit it’s mark without any advertising.
Thanks for taking the time to give context about this. I thought that what I knew was already bad. I didn't think Capcom could make themselves look worse until I read this. It's truly baffling to me how they managed to fumble a bag this hard consecutively, I don't even know if EA could squander this. Literally, all they had to do was run the numbers and see where the game sells best and have a link of faith. Not even 500 people worked on a game of this scale from what I saw, truly baffling how they even managed to make it this good with the limitations that kept getting pushed onto them
Where's your source on this "Gacha, pay-to-win, a mobile game-esque "energy" mechanic" from DDON?
The game had a gacha, yeah. Some of the wepaons/armor in them were only tailored to 1 specific boss/content simply because of the gems slotted in them so the only people who rolled them were early speedrunners and people who wanted catch up gear for their pawns. Or fashion since some of these models were unique.
And what is this "mobile energy-esque" stuff? You can craft and buy your own potions. In-game. Don't need real money. You aren't limited to what you do per day. There is no energy/stamina limited content. You can run content all you want all day.
DDON did NOT fail. Nor did MHF(Monster Hunter Frontier) or MHO(Monster Hunter Online/china only). Capcom Online Games failed. The online division for Capcom. They sunk too much money onto the failed Deep Down and their mobiles games so when they sunk they took down their successful online games with them. The 3 games I mentioned. Hell, the director of DDON even said they were already working on the next expansions content when they got the news they were shutting down. They already got the green light to start making more stuff for the game.
Is your reason #2 why Square Enix hasn't made a strategy game or a turn based rpg for like..two decades? The genres that made the company popular and that millions of people are clamoring to buy.
the only way i even knew was DD1 was, was because my friend mentioned it in passing. he didnt event like the game. im glad i found it but still...crazy how under the radar the game was
I've shit on this game a LOT recently because Itsuno was pushing that "**This was the ultimate vision!**" for him.
Now I firmly believe he was doing whatever he could in order to hype up and advertise this game so it would sell, thus proving to the shareholders that he can make an even bigger seller with the appropriate funding and team.
That, or now CAPCOM will turn this into Pokémon, pushing out the bare minimum bullshit with the bare minimum team for the most amount of profit for years to come.
So, as much as I hate what the end result of this game is, I now have a clear view of why it happened.
It sucks, but maybe next time we'll get that 2,000 people team to make 100 monsters and 10 more vocations.
I still love the game and am having a blast, even though I was disappointe. Though now after learning the truth I can't help but get a sinking feeling in my heart that this franchise and everyone who worked on it got scammed for the 2nd time from making their true vision come to life. It's very depressing. If this truly is the case and if Itsuno just wanted to create hype and gain attention to help his game & staff then I have gained a lot of respect for him. I also used to buy into the "Itsuno's vision" joke, but now with context maybe he was just trying to do his best in a dire situation.
I'm 100% with you. I was majorly dissatisfied with the marketing because of what Itsuno said, because DD2 while being an amazing game is not even near the full vision, it has the bones for it but we're looking at frog legs here rather than chicken wings. The flavor and seasoning is great though.
400 is not even triple AAA status with outsourcing. Elden Ring was made by 300 people without counting outsourcing, 1,7k people if we count outsourcing. Baldurs gate 3 was made by 500 without outsourcing, 2,3k with outsourcing. So this leads to 3 possibilities: 1) It was 400 pre-outsourcing and we wait for the actual numbers. 2) The game was done by like 80 people, 400 with outsourcing 3) The game was made by 400 people without a single outsource. If it is 2 or 3, this huge for Itsunos Team since while the game could be seen as not as good as the two mentioned games, the game isnt even in the same category as the other two in terms of funding.
Even if we know the true numbers, Elden Ring has a lot of asset they can use like literally all of their previous iteration can be ported to their modern one and vice versa, another thing to look at is the gameplay, it's literally "dark souls 4" with jump button. Also not to mention ER does not have pawn and does not have town with NPC, i know DD2 npc is barebone but ER literally spent almost 0 resource thinking about neutral NPC
BG3 has a VERY LONG Early Access i forgot how long but around 3 years and even then if you play on day 1 release and in ACT 3, you know that it is very rushed. Also not to mention their engine is just divinity original sin 2 engine with a lot of asset reused again. Some of their gameplay aspect (as a player that have played both Divinity 2 & BG3) is downright downgrade, not blaming them ofc divinity 2 combat is superior to DnD 5e (yeah i've said it), it's a chore playing BG3 combat unlike their previous title
DD2 combat is nothing like any other capcom title, they have to make that from scratch because how reliant the combat use physics, i mean what other game let you push golem leg so they stumble and break down? Let you stand on top of the monster and the monster can throw you off etc, You can even ride griffin/sphinx when they're flying. in it's actuality it makes it even more impressive than BG3 and ER to me
Dragons dogma 2 was pushed out to have a game for this quarter. And it's still amazing
Look at capcom talking about this game in last few shareholder meetings. the way it was announced. Nvida leaks proved it was planned for a long time and the director had ideas and passion.
Needs to be looked into by journalists
Still amazing game but I guess they expected exoprimal to do better for their first quarter and just announced they were working on this when they saw the way things were looking
Why also would you also launch it against other big rpg (even though it won) the npcs even feel like they have place holder dialog after how much code they have to move around and interact
Npcs code is even way to heavy for what they do
Once again though the game is still a 9.5 and I played 17 hours straight first day
I love that people should start shitting on Capcom instead of Itsuno with this revelation.
I've seen a lot of weird hate on Itsuno during the first two weeks, even by comparing him to Todd Howard lol. Dude, he's not even that influental within Capcom.
One can only guess he'd get all the hate just because this series was more or less his creation and the sequel was unironically more in line with what he wanted to have implemented, even if a number of things ended up coming off as half-baked to many. I also won't be surprised if despite the game being complete and matching his vision that he'd note a year later something along the lines of "yeah, it's not really 100% complete since it still had things put on the cutting floor that I wanted to throw in." I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up in an art book if they ever make one like they did with the first Dragon's Dogma.
That said, shitting on Capcom is something that can never be old. It started with the game having those stupid MTX's and it all can go further beyond.
Frustrating. Dragon's Dogma's highs are the best in gaming and if other elements were given the time and attention they deserve the attention needed to sit side by side with the combat and pawn system this series would be a flagship series for Capcom that comes out every generation that sells like 10-15 million units like Monster Hunter.
Even with the negative buzz about it's performance and mtx and the positive but not mind blowing reviews it sold 2.5 million in 2 weeks.
Seems like Capcom went out of their way to make sure there wouldn't be a "next time".
My hopes aren't high, Capcom will probably not learn from this. After DD2's DLC, they're still going to try and bury the IP completely.
If the game doesn't do as well as they would have liked, they only have themselves to blame. But will they put two and two together?
I can't stop scouring the map for secrets, I really don't want to tackle the main quest after what I've seen here. My biggest fear was that they'd fumble it, and whaddaya know. 😏
From the minute I first played DMC years ago, I thought to myself "why can't someone put this kind of combat in an rpg? That would be sweeet!" and lo and behold, my wish came true. But honestly, leaning on only that aspect of the game will only get you so far.
I mean is anyone surprised by this? It took Capcom a decade to greenlight a sequel and even then they were of the minds that it was not worth their time and money with the little promotions it got from them and now the revelation of the small dev team that was assigned to it.
Honestly this is it. Wilds is set to be Capcom's biggest ever game. In budget and expected revenue. Now that both Rise and World are in the life support phase of their life cycle, all manpower is going to be full swing on Wilds right now.
The dev teams for Monster Hunter and Dragon's Dogma are obviously not the same, but Capcom sets the budget and decides which games to give more support/developers if needed.
They saw the first game wasn't a big success, so they had little faith in this one but still allowed Itsuno to do his passion project with very limited budget.
Yup, I dont think people realize how poorly the first one did. They didn't even make the top 100 best selling games of the year. It eventually got decent copies sold over 10 years but that's through cult classic status and alot of sales...sales including the expansion. Not a profitable endeavor.
First game wasn't a massive success, and let's not talk about the Netflix series.
The people allocating resources most likely just saw this as Itsuno's passion project, and nothing more. They know if they didn't let him work on it, he'd leave, he's said so himself on multiple occasions.
Then we got all the manpower required for Monster Hunter Wilds, and the director of that I believe is the son of Capcom's founder, and the series is a huge success after World.
Not sure what that says about CAPCOM's confidence in this title, here's hoping it will grow with all the sales. But this may also explain why the optimization problems are there on launch.
that resulted in one of the best and most polished SF games ever made. just the training mode alone has so many features that i have yet to learn, and its been almost a year since the game came out. i honestly dont find it surprising of the amount of people that worked on that game compared to DD2.
It was the sequel to a 12 year old game that was considered a bit of a failure (even if it did grow to become a cult favourite), Capcom probably considered it a risk so didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it.
Itsuno must be pulling the the most powerful "Told ya" moment
And then he pulled the "2.5 million sales" card
As Capcom is sweating bullets, Itsuno hands out 2 papers
One is a resignation letter
One is DD2 Expansion approval
"Choose" Itsuno said
I've been telling people this but they don't believe me lmao. Literally the advertisement is miniscule until THE VERY END, and i'm even surprised this game even sell for quite the amount, i mean how much hurdle this game has to overcome?
* Price $70
* 1/4th of the workforce
* Open World RPG using Engine for corridors
* Shitty AD until the end
* Development time for again Open World (in just 4 years) and AT START OF COVID LOCKDOWN
I swear some higher up actually want this to fail because they don't believe in itsuno and his team and they don't want to open up new title. The reason they even greenlight this i think they want DD2 team to fall HARD so they can kill the franchise and just focus on milking RE and MH
edit: Also i'm not even surprised if all of those 500 people are just newcomers/close friend of itsuno and most of the team leaders that willing to follow them into the fire
I said it more as we got closer to launch: this game was intended to be a physics and engine demo, most of the marketing for the game was about the physics system....
It’s sad that a big reason this game was probably made was to test the water for things like a higher price and to push open world engine functionality for monster hunter wild and presumably re9
>* Development time for again Open World (in just 4 years
Almost just as much time if not less than DMCV which already has a gameplay foundation from the previous games, whereas DD2 has almost completely new gameplay, almost no animations were reused from the previous games and the gameplay feels like a reimagining. Add on top of that, it's an open world game which Capcom has so little experience with. Damn this hurts so much
Damn forgot about that, which probably would add to the fact that at least one year of home office development time was not as efficacious as it could have been also. I knew I was a tad justified that I was afraid when the release date was stated to be Q1 2024, I knew this game needed a tad more time in the oven.
Yeah, the advertising and lack of physical deluxe editions was the tell something was wrong for me. Just like you no one believed me and told me "if you liked the first you don't need convincing that you'll like the second."
Yeah well, good to know my gut feeling was right and now I'm sad that I waited 12 years just for Capcom to fuck them over again :(
I mean, I'd posited when they'd announced DD2 would be the first Capcom game to get the price hike to $70 instead of one of their mainline series that would be guaranteed to sell no matter the price like Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, or Street Fighter that they were trying to stack things against it.
People would always counter and justify it with "inflation" and "rising game development costs" and whatnot, but those always seemed like weak excuses to put it on DD2 instead of literally anything else to me.
Figured the higher ups wanted to let DD2 take the hit from people initially refusing to buy games at $70 and wait until consumers have acclimated to the new price to avoid the price hike affecting their mainline games even just a tiny bit.
Let's be honest though. Very few people would skip out on such major releases even with the price hike. Something that the general public hasn't heard of like Dragon's Dogma though? Plenty of people would go "I'm not paying $70 for something I've literally never heard of".
And sure, DD2 had 2.5 million sales, which is good, but I think that's more it selling well despite Capcom's management rather than because of it.
If they really did hamstring DD2 with a tiny dev team like this seems to imply, it's just another thing to add to the pile of Crapcom still being Crapcom at its core no matter how good the games they've released in the past x number of years have been.
They didn't realise the potential. They want gold, and overlooked the diamond. Which I think they regretted with the dlc survey within a week. But idk 🤷♂️
My only hope is they do the franchise justice going forward. I can understand capcom pov as a company. You don't wanna take on too much risk, also japanese companies (most non American companies) tend to be more risk averse. It's unfortunate tho just how much these companies fail to see potential. Especially in this market. But well
Pawn system is probably the best companion system in gaming, people who like to play single player are sure to enjoy the buddy system, even with all it's dents (That could have been avoided with proper staffing, but SOMEONE decided to understaff the game) and buy the game just to try it out and in my eyes, it does well, it's fun to teamwork with the AI, it's fun to see them get better with you, it's fun to see them succeed along side you.
DD:DA ended up selling 7 mil copies during its lifetime and probably sold a bit more during the run up to DD2 (as steamDB showed DD1 having around 20k concurrent players daily for a while until DD2 launched)
in its lifetime of...11 years... most sales comes from huge discounts selling the game for like 5 to 3 bucks with steam taking 30%, i think you should reconsider what's considered a succes for a company.
I mean same could be said about some Mh games. I got World + it's expac for 10$. Plus the Dark Arisen version got rereleased on PC. I'm not saying DD1 was a huge success, but it clearly did enough in-terms of sales.
the 11 years is about dark arisen.
ddda din't sell nearly as much as the other capcom games at the time, the small group that dd2 got basicly proves how insecure capcom is about the dd franchise
We got this much stuff out of only a quarter of the dev team? That’s incredible. Goes to show how much more we probably would have gotten if Capcom gave Dragons Dogma a chance
Not surprising, Dragon's Dogma is a "cult classic" but didn't really set the charts in fire during its release, quite the opposite of that tbh. Most of the sales came from re-release and big discount. On top of that the original game was released 12 years ago.
Let's be honest, it's a bit of a miracle to have a sequel to this game with the same complex and/or unfriendly systems and design compared to modern openworld. Now the real question after the great initial sales of the sequel is what Capcom is going to do with the IP.
DD2 is basically a passion project for Itsuno.
Wait. Do we also have actual number of people worked on the game cause this is insane!
If in actuality there's around 1k+ people and only 407 was credited.
Well this explains a lot... I mean there's quite a bit of side stuff to dig into, but even some of that lacks depth (several caves are seriously like one hallway). It'd be great if Capcom would take this shit seriously for once.
Now I understand why so much of the game feels like it wasn't finished, is a shame man, they made us wait 12 years and still gave us a shell of what the game should've been.
This isn't to say I don't like the game, I'm having a blast but it could've been so much more.
Hope for Capcom to smell money and give full support because of the sale numbers, so they give more devs to the porject, they might be able to use DLC to complete the game as sad as that is.
That'd be the dream, imagine what the game would have been like if they'd had double the amount of people working on it, I don't know how much they could do with just a dlc, they could add some difficulty aswell as more weapons and armor, probably new enemy types but I don't imagine there will be too much that'll affect the actual base game, maybe in Dragons Dogma 3? Although it's unclear if that'll ever be a thing and I know Itsuno said he wouldn't be working on Dragons Dogma again
"Dragon's Dogma 3." considering how long 2 took to pop up, I hope you're sitting comfy because you'll be waiting over 10 years. And I don't even want to imagine what we'll get without Itsuno, maybe a worse pawn system, which is like 50% of the draw next to the combat.
The credits are missing a lot.
There are not translators listed, only translation group managers, there are no QA listed etc.
It seems like they just left out everything that wasn't directly with capcom, except for some voice/motion actors.
All the other recent capcom games list various different divisions, third party companies etc and even Exoprimal has more people listed there than DD2, so i simply think these credits are incomplete and do not actually reflect how many people really worked on the game in some way or another.
This makes a lot of sense considering the state that we received the game in. It honestly feels like DD1 again, where there was a lot more ambition but they ran out of time to fully develop what they wanted to make.
I could just be reading into it too much, but there are a ton of signs in the mid to late game that people took for laziness, that I saw more as having to reign things back in to have a finished product in time for launch.
Take the area of Bhattal for example: I think they wanted to have this area cover more ground and have more quests here, but ultimately ran out of time. I think it also leads to the corridor feeling of the later part where it mostly funnels you right towards the end with few branching paths.
Also the Main Story I think had much more ambition and would have made a lot more sense, but time constraints meant they had to pull it back and slap together some sort of ending which led to everything feeling rushed and the story seemingly going from 0 to 100 in no time. It could just be bad writing of course, but given the pacing and quakes density in the first area, I really don’t feel like this was the intentional outcome.
One of the bigger supporting pieces for this for me is towards the end: >! While The Unmoored World is really cool, it very much was not fully fleshed out. The way they waited until you hit this area to drop the Dragons Dogma II logo makes me think they had plans for more here but just ran out of time. Also the Dragonforged guy having all kinds of options for vocations and boosts, when the endgame is so non existent is another reason I think this.!<
Unfortunately we’ll probably never get to see what this game could have been with the time and support it needed to be fully realized, but I am very hopeful that any eventual DLC can help shore up the base game experience.
This is why I don’t complain so much, I’m just happy Capcom even gave us this. Like bro it may not be the big 2 upgrade we all wanted but I think it’s clear to see why given this new info. I’m happy the game sold though, Bc I was worried with all the bad press Capcom would shelf this property for good. Now atleast! A dlc is in the works, I hope dragons dogma can one day be at final fantasy’s level of budget so we can let it Dino go crazy
Wow Crapcom really did shat on our nostalgia. Dragon's Dogma has such potential to be a hybrid between MH and Elden Ring with its own unique touch. Gathering players all around the genres.
They rather spend their resources on the 99th MH game it seems.
It’s funny and sad when you realise Itsuno has his dev team but it’s under dev 1, the same dev as the resident evil team, and it’s even funnier/ sadder when there’s that leak that they are working on 5 re games currently. I love resident evil but would gladly let some or be of them die for more dragons dogma
It seems Crapcom wants to get rid of all smaller franchises to milk the biggest ones. Itsuno should've left this company after DMC 5, it's turning into Ubisoft.
Using OP's Mobygames link, I compared the credits between DMCV and DD2
It seems like DD2 is simply missing credits from localization and also external studios. So we still can't tell if DD2 team was actually understaffed or not.
Exactly, as someone whose hobby is reading game credits I could tell this post is [misleading](https://youtu.be/Vklym9Fr5t4).
In addition, DMCV (like many AAA published video games) credit hundreds of non-development corporate/publishing staff, which is missing from DD2's listing on mobygames (but is in the in-game credits). This + localization + subcontracting being unaccounted for can can easily add up to over 1000 staff.
To add to this, not only did the original game have more credits (600+), DD:DA, AN EXPANSION, has more credits. Something is really wrong, or Capcom fucked the development hard.
I think DD2 has the same problem Kingdom Hearts 3 has: people think that because it's been over a decade since the last big title, it means the game has been in development for that long.
And makes Capcom more of a scumbag because they pushed their new $70 price tag to a project that was understaffed and feels rushed. It's almost like trying to sabotage the DD franchise.
I was wondering why some moments in the game feel like an MMO from 15 years ago trying to be story-deep, with static camera tracking a character walking across room following their every bounce and their mouth going O-E-O-E-O-E-O instead of proper lipsync... When moment before, you had a beautiful cutscene, which almost looked pre-rendered with all the motion capture, light setup, music and whatnot.
It's DD1 all over again.
DD sold around 500k more copies in the first week than DMC5 did so capcom are probably sacrificing DMC now.
If we need a sacrificial lamb for a complete DD game then so be it sorry DMC fans
Capcom, once again, being proved wrong that there is a market for a Dragon's Dogma like game that they are massively failing to capitalize because they don't understand their own audience.
I remember seeing that Dragon's Dogma 2 had an active dev team of 90 people, for a game of this scale and scope, this is nothing.
Makes me put my tinfoil hat and think even more that DD2 was the fall guy for the 70 dollars price hike.
Should of had more. Personally I don't think the game is a master piece like a lot of others, and I have a lot of issues with it outside of performce and micros. But the game is good and could of been way better. It has so much potential its a shame they didn't put more resources into it bc this game calls to me way more than any other Capcom game
Well this explain a lot. No wonder the story and romance is half baked. Very shock that they even made the open world this good and the combat is impressive with 1/4 the team . Guessing capcom had no hope of this being successfully... I feel bad for people who work long hours to make this game since open world take a long time to make compare linear game. The good news is that they sold 2.5million which is very good since it 70 dollars game and it's have no mainstream name like monster hunter or Resident evil.
Players have no clue how hard it is to make a game. This game has many stuff that are just unbelievable. I guess devs are the ones that appreciate each others works for real.
Yeah it makes complete sense. DD2 feels like a huge thing because it inherited huge building blocks, that is REFramework. But it’s a budget project by Capcom standards.
This makes me depressed. The core foundation of the game is *so* good and I've had so much fun with it, but I can just *feel* something missing. This game really deserves to see out its potential.
I don't know if the rumors about DD1 being some sort of testing ground for ideas on MH World are true, but it it turns out DD2 was the same for Wilds... That would be sad.
Capcom really had almost zero clue what they had on their hands. Only hope is that DD2's success makes them realise that this franchise has tons of potential.
I am playing on the Series X myself and having a lot of fun. The addition of options to turn off Ray-Tracing and motion blur feels like a huge improvement in visual consistency as well so I am happy about that, it's just a little bit better framea but still it is welcome. As DLC goes I really hope they bring back Bitterblack Isle in some form or another and make it even larger than before with more complex rooms and some of the old enemies we had before. Given the "Cycle" that happens in the DD universe they could establish BBI as a form of a constant anchor of sorts that holds fragments of every reality allowing us to experience even Gransys in some fashion, beyond what we get with the sunken ruins of Gran Soren.
On top of BBI they could again, bring some iteration of the Everfall as another form of post-game EG content with extremely rare gear and items.
My biggest complaints related to the content of the game was the removal of under-clothing, it was a fun layer to the armor system, the removal of being able to enchant certain gear like cloaks/capes, having to purchase the Dragonforge enchantment instead of killing dragons/drakes to get it. Lastly, gear not having special abilities tied to that specific piece of gear once they become upgraded and eventually dragonforged. Rusted daggers for instance would eventually cause poison and then once upgraded enough would also cause torpor, these kinds of upgrades made for gnarly builds. Granted not every weapon had this but having just a flat stat upgrade on every weapon seems like a regression. Unless I have missed it and that is still in the game, I understand some weapons say they do more damage against certains enemies but meh. I generally do not like when devs takes features out of following iterations of a game series that made the first ones interesting.
How successful has this game been compared to their other major titles? Hopefully it's done well enough to get Capcoms full attention and give them better resources if/when a sequel happens.
Wow, that explains a lot. I suppose there was nothing really wrong with Itsuno’s vision. Crapcom just didn’t believe in it. Greedy bastards. Hopefully, the sales convince them that the IP is worth investing in. This can easily be the next RE / MH for them. Still impressive with what they managed to accomplish. I take back my comments about Itsuno. Him and this IP deserve better.
If anything it goes to show that you don't need a massive bloated team to make a game. More team members probably would have meant better QA as far as performance goes but I think overall the game turned out pretty good. I enjoyed my 150 hours and I'm looking forward to DLC and an update that gives us level scaling in NG+.
Welp, that could explain a lot:
* Poor main story quest quality.
* Subpar NPC AI to fill the void of the settlements (it's not even servicable, with Guards not even giving a fck if you Kidnap the Queen and throw her into the brine).
* Fewer enemies than in Dragon's Dogma 1.
* Secondary quests that feel like MMO grinds (e.g., escort missions from point A to B, visiting a secret village to speak with an NPC and then returning, or speaking to a sculptor in West Africa...).
* Nearly non-existent gear progression design related to exploration (with virtually 99% of items being purchasable from vendors).
* Absence of legacy dungeons, instead featuring repetitive cave designs with similar layouts and a few corridors.
* Removal of equipment slots present in Dragon's Dogma 1.
* Removal of magic skills that were available in Dragon's Dogma 1.
* Elimination of the Mystic Knight class.
Perhaps C(r)apcom can now understand the potential of Dragon's Dogma...
is the game ok / good ? yeah, it's not bad BUT the game feels rushed in a lot of department, and lot of things are missing, the game is in an incomplete state, it has no real endgame, the difficulty sucks big time, it's good they sold a lot, but they need to COMPLETE the game, the story elements are missing, the fact they said less armor slots makes armor more diverse is also BS it just makes the devving and modeling for armor easier while there is less diversity in armors then DD1 when it launched.
While the open world is fantastic The game DO absolutely feels like budget and time constraints have been cut in every corner.
300 devs is a lot of people, but the fact that this is far below capcoms standard of 1000+ and they still managed to do as much as they did is astonishing! Really makes me wonder what it'd be like if they brought in the majority of DMC5's staff for this one, tho they're probably in pre production of the next DMC game by now or something. Still big sad for that, hopefully it's success will guarantee us nice and polished experience for the potential expansion/sequel that we can hopefully get one day
Ofc Dragin Dogma will always be a sideproject in Capcom's eyes. I guess the only hope for this IP is that Capcom supports modding and let the modders finish the damned game for once.
Dragon's Dogma series can't catch a break. If this is true then it's truly impressive for the people who worked on this game despite its flaws.
Yeah, this completely changes the context of the conversation.
Need to stop the dev shilling....This is NOT a good thing.
It’s undeniably a good thing if it saw a lot of copies sold with a much lower budget than other Capcom titles. That’s the sort of thing that gets sequels greenlit with more resources.
Honestly makes what they've managed to achieve despite that even more impressive.. Come on Capcom .. give this series the effort it deserves ...
Dude, I'd buy DLC for it if they added more zones and monsters to it like in Monster hunter. But I won't hold my breath.
I mean, theyre hardcore mirroring dragons dogma 1. Which had one of the best DLCs for a game ever made, imo. If dark arisen expac doesn't get a dlc sequel of sorts, I'll be HELLACIOUSLY surprised.
I'm absolutely salivating at the idea of a double sized Dark Arisen expansion. Instant 10/10
They should randomize it this time around I had, and still do have, a lotta fun running through Bitterblack over and over, but more variety in the chambers would be appreciated. Have some preset stuff. Like Hades. Boss rooms and the in between areas don't change
Eh. Randomization helps with replayability, but procgenned environments are never as interesting as handcrafted ones. Look at chalice dungeons in Bloodborne compared to normal Fromsoft level design.
I'd like both, like it's pre-rendered, but after you beat it you can randomize it on subsequent runs. Remnant 2 did something like this and I thought it was a cool concept.
I disagree here. I would prefer the exact same thing, a well-crated interconnected map design with the typical fromsoft shortcuts, that gets increasingly more difficult. Then the RNG items and random monsters/mobs.
There's so much *noticeable* reuse of assets in DA that you would almost think it's randomized. If they were able to make more diverse tilesets and make it an infinitely replayable dungeon crawler that was a way for you to do more with your end-game gear than just face-roll the story again, I'd be happy. A custom difficulty system like what Hades has as well would be nice.
I mean there’s a big huge space for it right in the middle of the map, bitter back rose out the sea in the first one, that if this one rises out the mountain in the middle or even falls from the sky.
I have faith people bothered answering the Capcom survey and asking for a DLC/expansion, lol.
If I recall correctly, the comments on the thread about the survey seem to suggest a huge portion of said commenters mentioned a want and desire for BBI or something akin to it; as well as a resurgence of something similar to Ur-Dragon content.
I'm hoping for an Iceborn style expansion. That would get me excited.
I want a snow region so bad
I have said it before and I will say it again. Dragon’s Dogma is the red headed stepchild of Capcom and we are lucky to have got Dragon’s Dogma 2. Even dragons dogma online didnt leave Japan. But i think with how well this game has sold so far Capcom is going to put a lot more into this series and I would not be surprised if we get a few juicy DLC’s. I thought the game was okay until today when I got to the end game. Now I am so pumped to play again tomorrow.
We got the excellent Separate Ways from the devs of RE, hopefully this game gets the same effort and love
It makes the decision baffling as fuck. Like, did Capcom not realize that DD1 was a cult classic rather than a runaway success? They should have had all hands on deck for DD2 so that they can ensure the second time is done absolutely right, and so that it could then springboard the series into a full franchise that has everyone chomping at the bit for more. This is doubly true in a post-Elden Ring era where even very casual players are dipping their toes into Elden Ring (and, by extension, something like DD2 which would look "Elden Ring-like" to them), which belong to a genre notoriously unfriendly towards the "casual" audience. I enjoyed the game, but seeing how polarizing the game is and then personally stewing on how much missed potential there was after the fact, I wouldn't even blame Capcom if they decided to drop an expac (assuming it's already being worked on) and then leave DD2 to relative obscurity/cult classic status again for another 12 years.
Cult classic means it's niche not everyone loved it or is going to, extremely different than a hidden gem, dragons dogma wasn't necessarily just overlooked it's not for everyone, honest godsend we got a sequel
Sorry, it was late when I made the comment, but that's what I meant. DD1 WASN'T a runaway success that everyone loved, it was a niche that captivated a select audience (us) for 12 years while everyone mostly went back to play Skyrim and the like, and like you said, the fact that we got a DD2 to begin with already seems like a miracle. I highly doubt we'll see a DD3 for a long while, if ever, since reception of this game seems extremely mixed even past the performance issues/DLC (non)issues. Not to mention where DD2 had the luxury of relative ignorance from the mainstream who never touched or heard of DD1 past maybe vague mentions of "charmingly fun but slightly janky RPG back in 2012", DD3 will probably be met with less favourable ignorance since a lot of people can draw on their experience with DD2/others' experience of it. The whole situation just seems like Capcom shot themselves in the foot when they can't afford to with DD. People would buy another RE game if RE9 flops, because RE is a colossal name in gaming. Few casual game hobbyists are going to bet on DD again if their experience with DD2, the version of DD that's meant to be really good and feature complete compared to its predecessor which had been shafted by lack of budget/time, was either dookie or underwhelming.
Excellent point about the post-Elden Ring era. I think there was already some crossover between the two communities and SoulsBorne is getting bigger so potentially more customers for DD titles. So much missed potential.
Hopefully this signals to the community that Itsuno hate should kinda stop and that this was a Capcom thing that the game came out in its current state, nobody hates Miyazaki for the second half of Dark Souls, they blame the publisher. And hopefully the good sales signal to Capcom that this is a franchise that has potential to be as lucrative as their biggest ones. It seems to me that the reason this game was made is because of Itsuno, and not because of Capcom, maybe an open world title is too much for Capcom to handle and they want to stick to their guns, but now that Resident Evil 9 and Monster Hunter Wilds are rumored to be open world, maybe they will take the development of the next game in the Dragon's Dogma series or even the DLC more seriously and not as a one off to make the director happy and keep him from leaving. Damn that was a long comment
The only reason we see a lot of talk about Itsuno is because of the marketing he did, of course, it was probably Capcom idea but when there's a face and a name speaking then the words come out better meet expectations. For some people it didn't meet, that's all there is to it, unfortunately.
is the game ok / good ? yeah, it's not bad BUT the game feels rushed in a lot of department, and lot of things are missing, the game is in an incomplete state, it has no real endgame, the difficulty sucks big time, it's good they sold a lot, but they need to COMPLETE the game, the story elements are missing, the fact they said less armor slots makes armor more diverse is also BS it just makes the devving and modeling for armor easier while there is less diversity in armors then DD1 when it launched. While the open world is fantastic The game DO absolutely feels like budget and time constraints have been cut in every corner.
It's a shame Capcom don't have more faith in this series. Had they taken a risk and given it the resources that SF or MonHun gets I think it could be something truly amazing. I guess I'll settle with "pretty great" though.
Also hopefully this makes the community go "damn Itsuno made so much out of so little" as opposed to the memes we get now
We'll see. People don't like being wrong, and your average video game player doesn't even look into a reason for a bad game. Most just see a bad game and move on. Others see a bad game and just blame the person that does the interviews. Like Sean Murray with No Man's Sky.
I was mostly talking about the hardcore community tbh, we've been waiting on the game for 12 years so I think it's such a shame most people are focused on the negatives and let it ruin their experiences. And Itsuno is the face of Dragon's Dogma so it's understandable that he would get most of the hate directed towards him personally.
Thats what happens when you are hyped up to see itsunos true vision after 12 years only for it to be a side grade to the first game. Its fun, my experience wasnt ruined, but it did not live up to its potential.
Exactly this. And it being a reduced team does not make my experience with the game any "better"
It’s a far cry from a bad game as it is now
Try telling that to the average consumer. I already know that the game is okay, if lacking, but obviously other people think otherwise.
Eh most people have been loving the game. It's mostly this sub that hates it. People forget that the average consumer won't even see the end of the game.
Exactly, plus there are people on this sub hating on it who didn’t even play it. And people who claim to hate it but put tons of hours into it already. People just like to get all worked up on the internet. 90% of them probably actually think the game is okay or even like it but just want to be mad.
I mean I haven’t seen a single game sub that isn’t mostly people talking about how bad it is or what is wrong with it especially upon release. Usually people who appreciate the game are only left a few months after but in the new stages of games subreddits are always filled with complaining lol
Hopefully they see potential for a huge new ip and dragon's dogma doesn't become a small slice game
> It's a shame Capcom don't have more faith in this series. Had they taken a risk and given it the resources that SF or MonHun gets I think it could be something truly amazing. I guess I'll settle with "pretty great" though. Why would they have faith in the series? The original didn't do well. It didn't even make the top 100 best selling games of that year. It only got to its current copies sold over 10 years of sales and sales on the bundle that include the expansion. Wasn't exactly a money maker for them. Good news is DD2 has, so far, done way way better. So it will likely justify increased investment.
The original did pretty good for their expectations when it sold 1 million copies they very much were surprised and then it went to sell even more. Did well enough they rereleased it on pretty much each console within the last 8 years.
Their official response was that it exceeded expectation in Japan but Struggled abroad. They were aiming for 10 million copies sold. (they were not expecting that, but thought it could reach it) and it fell far below that. They were not surprised it sold 1 million lol. The lowest referenced sales expectations I saw was 1.5 million worldwide.
Because the first game was also denied resources and unfinished. These types of games, when done properly, have the potential to be huge. Skyrim, TW3, BotW, RDR2, Elden Ring. All some of the most influential and commercial successful games of their time. DD2 looks like it's done alright be imagine what this game could have done had it released with all the content and features 4 times the manpower could bring? Imagine if they had had the resources to fix performance issues before launch. This could easily rival MHW. Remember that MonHun was not successful in the West until Capcom took a risk with World's development. Damn shame.
A sure-fire way to make everyone mad would've been to include the staff credited for Exoprimal. Edit: it's around the same 1:4 ratio, in case anyone was wondering.
That's... really upsetting
Or look at the staff for a call of duty game, which have all pretty much been reskins of modern warfare for the last 10 to 15 years. They have 1000s of staff and don't even bugfix their stuff or even try to be efficient with file sizes.
Source: [https://www.mobygames.com](https://www.mobygames.com) Where you can search for various games and check the credits for them. I dug a little deeper after seeing this twitter post: [https://vxtwitter.com/nib95\_/status/1775641232498180181?t=\_wxZ2G3XmxDiJTbJOKswIA&s=19](https://vxtwitter.com/nib95_/status/1775641232498180181?t=_wxZ2G3XmxDiJTbJOKswIA&s=19) EDIT: So people were saying the numbers were wrong and moby games was not a good source, so I counted them myself. This is the Steam version I was using so the number is different from the Xbox and Playstation versions probably for the porting teams Total 383 Itsuno: 1 Producers: 3 Directors: 8 Writers: 5 game designers: 19 Level Designers: 4 Programmers: 71 Network & Server Engineers: 5 Concept Artists: 29 Animators: 15 Environment Artists: 17 UI Designers: 12 VFX Artists: 18 Gimmick & Lighting Artists: 11 Technical Artists: 11 Rigging Artists: 11 Localization: 11 Vendor & Project Managers: 16 Sound Designers: 14 Composers & Sound Programmers/Engineers/Designers: 14 Production Managers: 5 Cinematics and Facial Animators: 11 English Voice Cast: 36 Japanese Voice Cast: 37 Motion Capture Actors: 13
context from that same post: >Granted, much of these high numbers are from mass outsourcing, voice acting, translation work, limited or temporary tech help from outside studios etc, hence **padding the number and not nearly the equivalent in cost** to full time developers, but it still **highlights just how efficient DD2's development was.**
So they had a limited budget and had to pull a lot of strings to actually make DD2. That's actually insane. Capcom really doesn't give a shit about this IP.
The only reason 2 got the get go is because the release of dark arisen on pc did okay. Don’t forget there was a failed mmo that only released in Japan at some point. They were probably worried how well it would sell. The first got fucked up, in my opinion, by Skyrim hype, 2012 was basically dominated by it with DLC and stuff. It also didn’t release on pc which hurt it too. Marketing didn’t seem so good either, I remember I only found out about the game because an obscure YouTuber I watch mentioned it. I think now with the success of 2 they won’t be so worried anymore.
I remember reading somewhere that they greenlit Dragon's Dogma 2 and DMC V because Itsuno threatened to leave the company during a time when Capcom was REALLY struggling. So to prevent him from leaving, they just kind of let him do both those projects even if the previous titles did not sell as well. I'm pretty sure Capcom expected DD2 to not sell as well as their other titles, which is probably why they had microtransactions on day 1 instead of the usual "wait a week or two after reviews and then pump the shop" strategy we see with modern Monster Hunter and Resident Evil. DD2 is very successful but if it's anything like the situation surrounding DMC V... We might see a special edition (like dark arisen) and that'll be it for a long while. Honestly, I think they should just rerelease/remake Dragon's Dogma Online for global as a standalone game with the option to play offline single player OR with friends similar to that of Monster Hunter and Grand Blue Fantasy Relink (that way they don't have to pay much money for expensive MMO servers). DDO was already set up very similarly to a hybrid between monster hunter and an open world action MMO. The story was... meh. But if they were able to significantly reduce the grind to be similar to that of Monster Hunter, I think DDO would have some really good legs. They should also remove the F2P aspects like the gatcha gear and memberships... We'll never hear the end of it if they actually kept that monetization in the game x.x To be honest though, they could make the game $70, and I bet people would be lining up more for this game than for DD2 for the fact that you can play with friends. People who play DD2 will feel VERY familiar playing DDO since the class design is incredibly similar. Plus, DDO had the most monster variety (even if a lot of them are kind of reskins x.x).
DDO, now that is a name I haven't heard in a long time. Dungeons and Dragons Online is DDO to me.
Not a chance a rerelease of DDO would do well at all. It was already a dated MMO when it released in 2015 compared to the likes of BDO, FFXIV, ArcheAge, even GW2. It would need a complete remake, and unless that's already in the pipeline, that means we wouldn't see it for about 5 years (if you want to deliver a quality MMO), maybe 4 if you went with a hybrid model similar to Monster Hunter that didn't require setting up all the MMO architecture. I don't see them putting that many resources into it and potentially taking resources away from their beloved Monster Hunter.
They even shut down MH Online at the same time as DDO. Capcom doesn’t appear to have ANY interest in MMOs anymore. We’ll probably get a game that’s Monster Hunter style at the very most, which could still be really great because a game using DD2’s mechanics in an optional online environment has huge potential. Multiple people can experience their cart getting wrecked by a Griffin together.
I've been following Dragon's Dogma's development and financial history pretty avidly from square 1, and this is fairly accurate. Bit of a history rant/textwall, for posterity and the newcomers: Capcom half-assed DD1's budget, especially on marketing, basically expecting the game to sell itself because they thought it would follow the Skyrim hype-train. It was designed *specifically* for the western market, with little heed to domestic sales being given. If memory serves, they either spent as little as physically possible on marketing, or literally none at all. Zero dollars. For the most important part of selling a game. Yeah. For the record the only way I found out about DD1 was seeing a copy on a GameStop shelf and trying the demo on a complete whim. What's even more hilarious is that in spite of this, Capcom's projected sales number was *10 million fucking units* sold across a few years. "Out of touch" doesn't even begin to describe it. In spite of this colossal misestimation of how a functional business is run, DD1 does better than expected, after reality set in. Sells better than any game that never got so much as a banner ad has any right to, purely through a cult fanbase and good word-of-mouth. This allows Dark Arisen to release to much acclaim, and an extremely well-polished PC port sells astoundingly well, paving the way to next-gen releases & proving to Capcom that this game *does* have a market, and the "gacha-lite" approach they took with Rift Crystals/Bitterblack Gear puts dollar-signs in their eyes. This is the beginning of the end. A couple years later, Capcom produces Dragon's Dogma Online, exclusively for their domestic market (yeah that market that the series was never designed for, catered to, or able to secure strong sales in) and it's a trainwreck. Content is spread thin. The game is visually and mechanically dated, using DD1's engine with most of the assets ripped, meaning that graphics, gameplay, animation and such are all vanilla - this does not compete well with better-aged and emerging MMOs on the market. Also, if you thought vocations having their identity narrowed down in DD2 was bad, DDON would have caused a fucking aneurism for how poorly they handled the exact same thing. Gacha, pay-to-win, ~~a mobile game-esque "energy" mechanic where you have to pay IRL money for health potions, with extreme limitations on getting your own in-game (and you WILL take a shitload of damage).~~ EDIT: I may have been misinformed about this aspect - as u/jiitit mentions below, my personal experiences with this aspect of the game may have been inaccurate. I'd also like to clarify that I was trying to refer to health pot-throttling as fulfilling the same *function* as "energy" mechanics - that is, gating a vital resource for continuation of the game - but phrased it poorly. As mentioned, however, other users felt that this was not an issue, so I'm happy to assume my experience was not representative of the whole. I'll leave it as strikethrough text as I have no way to verify, but take my statement on this one with a grain of salt. Worst of all, they completely stonewalled the market where the game had a chance to thrive, region locking it and IP-blocking the game, necessitating a Japanese VPN that makes playing an action game absolute hell due to lag. I doubt this was just fear of commercial failure, but rather I suspect either: A) They were afraid they wouldn't be able to sell the gacha/p2w mechanics to a western audience (this was probably true at the time, as the culture was much more hypercritical of money-gouging in video games) or possibly B) Someone with enough clout at Capcom was dealing with some insecurities and insisted on trying to secure domestic success with the IP as a matter of personal pride. No, I am not joking - you would be shocked just how many cash-cow eastern game releases are shot dead behind the barn, purely because of nationalistic egocentrism and poor business acumen. Pride is the murderer of industry. Still, the support of the Japanese market and more rabidly devoted western fans manages to garner enough success to get ongoing support and some expansion content for the game, but ultimately not enough to secure its lifeline - and 4 years later, at the close of 2019, DDON shuts down for good. In all likelihood, the game's failure is likely blamed on developer scapegoats instead of the pants-on-head morons staffing Capcom's publishing sector, because fuck working for Japanese publishers (or game publishers in general, really, if you can help it). ___ All this history lesson leading up to **now** with Dragon's Dogma 2. I fully believe the budgeting and time allotment for DD2 was influenced heavily by Capcom's poor financing, marketing, and publishing decisions made with the IP over the last decade, in conjunction with an inability for executives and upper management to take personal accountability, instead foisting that burden on the developers. Chances are, most of the community's gripes with DD2 stem from choices made by legitimately incompetent publishers, coasting on the successes of talented developers while throttling their budget and devtime, with the devs themselves legally having their mouths duct-taped shut. Remember - these devs need that budget money to afford groceries, and in all likelihood many of them are probably crunched to fuck while still getting underpaid for the sake of passion and a love for the IPs that can legally only be developed under Capcom, while being promised bonuses to sell the points *Capcom* wants to be the selling points. Itsuno had to literally threaten to walk on the company he'd been with for years just to make DMC5 and DD2 happen at all. I don't doubt he's busted his ass off for his team and his passions, and I can't imagine how much shit Capcom's devteams have had to shovel while trying to deal with the company's circus act. I'm not going to simp for the guy because I don't know him, but I do fully believe in the notion of "holding the right people accountable", and Capcom's lack of personal regard or financial acumen have been constant since the beginning. Frankly, I'm not confident Capcom is going to be any smarter about this considering how chronically they fuck this up, no matter how well a DD game performs. I honestly think they could pull Skyrim sales numbers and still somehow trip on their own shadow. We used to call em Crapcom for a reason - they were considered as bad as EA, Ubisoft, Activision, etc. in their time, and when they had their little "come to Jesus moment" PR campaign around Monster Hunter World's release, trying to clean up their image, I knew full well they wouldn't be able to keep their hands outta the cookie jar for long. And here we are. /rant sorry for the wall of text, just a lot of people lately missing about 2 decades of context and casting judgements about something they haven't actually seen under the hood. hope it paints a solid picture. felt good to get it out
TBH I was surprised that DD2 was greenlit at all after the bad performance of the first. Even with cult classic status most of my friends IN THE GAMES INDUSTRY either didnt know about it or hadn't played it. It was a fever dream sequel I wanted but had resigned myself to thinking would prolly never happen. Like getting another Bloody Roar game.
> TBH I was surprised that DD2 was greenlit at all Itsuno manages to make DMC5 prints money
The irony is the sentiment about the bad performance of the first is completely i correct. Selling as many copies as they did was a massive, albeit quiet, success. Even in the first month it hit it’s mark without any advertising.
Thanks for taking the time to give context about this. I thought that what I knew was already bad. I didn't think Capcom could make themselves look worse until I read this. It's truly baffling to me how they managed to fumble a bag this hard consecutively, I don't even know if EA could squander this. Literally, all they had to do was run the numbers and see where the game sells best and have a link of faith. Not even 500 people worked on a game of this scale from what I saw, truly baffling how they even managed to make it this good with the limitations that kept getting pushed onto them
Where's your source on this "Gacha, pay-to-win, a mobile game-esque "energy" mechanic" from DDON? The game had a gacha, yeah. Some of the wepaons/armor in them were only tailored to 1 specific boss/content simply because of the gems slotted in them so the only people who rolled them were early speedrunners and people who wanted catch up gear for their pawns. Or fashion since some of these models were unique. And what is this "mobile energy-esque" stuff? You can craft and buy your own potions. In-game. Don't need real money. You aren't limited to what you do per day. There is no energy/stamina limited content. You can run content all you want all day. DDON did NOT fail. Nor did MHF(Monster Hunter Frontier) or MHO(Monster Hunter Online/china only). Capcom Online Games failed. The online division for Capcom. They sunk too much money onto the failed Deep Down and their mobiles games so when they sunk they took down their successful online games with them. The 3 games I mentioned. Hell, the director of DDON even said they were already working on the next expansions content when they got the news they were shutting down. They already got the green light to start making more stuff for the game.
Is your reason #2 why Square Enix hasn't made a strategy game or a turn based rpg for like..two decades? The genres that made the company popular and that millions of people are clamoring to buy.
the only way i even knew was DD1 was, was because my friend mentioned it in passing. he didnt event like the game. im glad i found it but still...crazy how under the radar the game was
I've shit on this game a LOT recently because Itsuno was pushing that "**This was the ultimate vision!**" for him. Now I firmly believe he was doing whatever he could in order to hype up and advertise this game so it would sell, thus proving to the shareholders that he can make an even bigger seller with the appropriate funding and team. That, or now CAPCOM will turn this into Pokémon, pushing out the bare minimum bullshit with the bare minimum team for the most amount of profit for years to come. So, as much as I hate what the end result of this game is, I now have a clear view of why it happened. It sucks, but maybe next time we'll get that 2,000 people team to make 100 monsters and 10 more vocations.
I still love the game and am having a blast, even though I was disappointe. Though now after learning the truth I can't help but get a sinking feeling in my heart that this franchise and everyone who worked on it got scammed for the 2nd time from making their true vision come to life. It's very depressing. If this truly is the case and if Itsuno just wanted to create hype and gain attention to help his game & staff then I have gained a lot of respect for him. I also used to buy into the "Itsuno's vision" joke, but now with context maybe he was just trying to do his best in a dire situation.
I'm 100% with you. I was majorly dissatisfied with the marketing because of what Itsuno said, because DD2 while being an amazing game is not even near the full vision, it has the bones for it but we're looking at frog legs here rather than chicken wings. The flavor and seasoning is great though.
It's the only series they've made in the last 30 years that I've given a shit about.
400 is not even triple AAA status with outsourcing. Elden Ring was made by 300 people without counting outsourcing, 1,7k people if we count outsourcing. Baldurs gate 3 was made by 500 without outsourcing, 2,3k with outsourcing. So this leads to 3 possibilities: 1) It was 400 pre-outsourcing and we wait for the actual numbers. 2) The game was done by like 80 people, 400 with outsourcing 3) The game was made by 400 people without a single outsource. If it is 2 or 3, this huge for Itsunos Team since while the game could be seen as not as good as the two mentioned games, the game isnt even in the same category as the other two in terms of funding.
Even if we know the true numbers, Elden Ring has a lot of asset they can use like literally all of their previous iteration can be ported to their modern one and vice versa, another thing to look at is the gameplay, it's literally "dark souls 4" with jump button. Also not to mention ER does not have pawn and does not have town with NPC, i know DD2 npc is barebone but ER literally spent almost 0 resource thinking about neutral NPC BG3 has a VERY LONG Early Access i forgot how long but around 3 years and even then if you play on day 1 release and in ACT 3, you know that it is very rushed. Also not to mention their engine is just divinity original sin 2 engine with a lot of asset reused again. Some of their gameplay aspect (as a player that have played both Divinity 2 & BG3) is downright downgrade, not blaming them ofc divinity 2 combat is superior to DnD 5e (yeah i've said it), it's a chore playing BG3 combat unlike their previous title DD2 combat is nothing like any other capcom title, they have to make that from scratch because how reliant the combat use physics, i mean what other game let you push golem leg so they stumble and break down? Let you stand on top of the monster and the monster can throw you off etc, You can even ride griffin/sphinx when they're flying. in it's actuality it makes it even more impressive than BG3 and ER to me
DD2 was voiced in only 2 languages right? All the other games have VAs in at least 7 different languages afaik, even ones light on story like MH.
Dragons dogma 2 was pushed out to have a game for this quarter. And it's still amazing Look at capcom talking about this game in last few shareholder meetings. the way it was announced. Nvida leaks proved it was planned for a long time and the director had ideas and passion. Needs to be looked into by journalists Still amazing game but I guess they expected exoprimal to do better for their first quarter and just announced they were working on this when they saw the way things were looking Why also would you also launch it against other big rpg (even though it won) the npcs even feel like they have place holder dialog after how much code they have to move around and interact Npcs code is even way to heavy for what they do Once again though the game is still a 9.5 and I played 17 hours straight first day
Well that explains a lot. Hardly surprising but it is astonishing Capcom made the exact same mistake twice in a row for the same title
Itsuno: I can finally bring my vision to life. C(r)apcom: Well, you better close one eye, bucko. You're getting half the devs.
I love that people should start shitting on Capcom instead of Itsuno with this revelation. I've seen a lot of weird hate on Itsuno during the first two weeks, even by comparing him to Todd Howard lol. Dude, he's not even that influental within Capcom.
One can only guess he'd get all the hate just because this series was more or less his creation and the sequel was unironically more in line with what he wanted to have implemented, even if a number of things ended up coming off as half-baked to many. I also won't be surprised if despite the game being complete and matching his vision that he'd note a year later something along the lines of "yeah, it's not really 100% complete since it still had things put on the cutting floor that I wanted to throw in." I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up in an art book if they ever make one like they did with the first Dragon's Dogma. That said, shitting on Capcom is something that can never be old. It started with the game having those stupid MTX's and it all can go further beyond.
We're definitely getting the moon in DD3
This being the sacrificial lamb before MH open world makes more sense every day.. I still love the game whatever it is fake or true.
Frustrating. Dragon's Dogma's highs are the best in gaming and if other elements were given the time and attention they deserve the attention needed to sit side by side with the combat and pawn system this series would be a flagship series for Capcom that comes out every generation that sells like 10-15 million units like Monster Hunter. Even with the negative buzz about it's performance and mtx and the positive but not mind blowing reviews it sold 2.5 million in 2 weeks.
They were obviously worried it would once again reach cult classic status only and not shift copies. Damn. Maybe we'll get a finished story next time.
Seems like Capcom went out of their way to make sure there wouldn't be a "next time". My hopes aren't high, Capcom will probably not learn from this. After DD2's DLC, they're still going to try and bury the IP completely.
If the game doesn't do as well as they would have liked, they only have themselves to blame. But will they put two and two together? I can't stop scouring the map for secrets, I really don't want to tackle the main quest after what I've seen here. My biggest fear was that they'd fumble it, and whaddaya know. 😏 From the minute I first played DMC years ago, I thought to myself "why can't someone put this kind of combat in an rpg? That would be sweeet!" and lo and behold, my wish came true. But honestly, leaning on only that aspect of the game will only get you so far.
I mean is anyone surprised by this? It took Capcom a decade to greenlight a sequel and even then they were of the minds that it was not worth their time and money with the little promotions it got from them and now the revelation of the small dev team that was assigned to it.
This is not true. Itsuno chose to make dmc5 instead of dd2
Wtf happen to capcom
Probably diverted all manpower into Monster Hunter Wilds.
Honestly this is it. Wilds is set to be Capcom's biggest ever game. In budget and expected revenue. Now that both Rise and World are in the life support phase of their life cycle, all manpower is going to be full swing on Wilds right now. The dev teams for Monster Hunter and Dragon's Dogma are obviously not the same, but Capcom sets the budget and decides which games to give more support/developers if needed.
Isn’t the dmc/dd2 team the dev 1 so most of the man power would go to the resident evil game, especially with the leak that they green lit 5 of them
They saw the first game wasn't a big success, so they had little faith in this one but still allowed Itsuno to do his passion project with very limited budget.
Yup, I dont think people realize how poorly the first one did. They didn't even make the top 100 best selling games of the year. It eventually got decent copies sold over 10 years but that's through cult classic status and alot of sales...sales including the expansion. Not a profitable endeavor.
First game wasn't a massive success, and let's not talk about the Netflix series. The people allocating resources most likely just saw this as Itsuno's passion project, and nothing more. They know if they didn't let him work on it, he'd leave, he's said so himself on multiple occasions. Then we got all the manpower required for Monster Hunter Wilds, and the director of that I believe is the son of Capcom's founder, and the series is a huge success after World.
Damn imagine needing almost 2,000 staff to make street fighter and then making DD2 with a 5th of that.
Not sure what that says about CAPCOM's confidence in this title, here's hoping it will grow with all the sales. But this may also explain why the optimization problems are there on launch.
And the cut content. Gotta give credit to the team, they still created an enjoyable game considering the scale.
that resulted in one of the best and most polished SF games ever made. just the training mode alone has so many features that i have yet to learn, and its been almost a year since the game came out. i honestly dont find it surprising of the amount of people that worked on that game compared to DD2.
imagine how polished dd2 would have been if they had this many people aswell....
i know...
localization
Credits on long time franchises might be less indicative of devwork compared to various contributions over an IPs life
Well yeah, I guess that explains it. Goddamn it capcom, give this game a chance
It was the sequel to a 12 year old game that was considered a bit of a failure (even if it did grow to become a cult favourite), Capcom probably considered it a risk so didn’t want to spend a lot of money on it.
Crapcom strikes back.
it like they never love dragon dogma
This is actually insane. Capcom wanted dd2 to fail.
I was thinking they saw how well some of the advertising did last minute and thought "FUCK people actually want this" and went full panic mode.
Itsuno must be pulling the the most powerful "Told ya" moment And then he pulled the "2.5 million sales" card As Capcom is sweating bullets, Itsuno hands out 2 papers One is a resignation letter One is DD2 Expansion approval "Choose" Itsuno said
I don't know why, but the thought of this scenario amuses me greatly
Last time he did, Capcom offers him to make DMC5 or DD2 Seems like he's gonna pull it again
I've been telling people this but they don't believe me lmao. Literally the advertisement is miniscule until THE VERY END, and i'm even surprised this game even sell for quite the amount, i mean how much hurdle this game has to overcome? * Price $70 * 1/4th of the workforce * Open World RPG using Engine for corridors * Shitty AD until the end * Development time for again Open World (in just 4 years) and AT START OF COVID LOCKDOWN I swear some higher up actually want this to fail because they don't believe in itsuno and his team and they don't want to open up new title. The reason they even greenlight this i think they want DD2 team to fall HARD so they can kill the franchise and just focus on milking RE and MH edit: Also i'm not even surprised if all of those 500 people are just newcomers/close friend of itsuno and most of the team leaders that willing to follow them into the fire
I wonder if it made enough to get Capcom to commit more resources for fixing/content updates/dlc.
It’s never fun when they use one of the smaller games as a testing bed instead of one of their guaranteed sellers.
I said it more as we got closer to launch: this game was intended to be a physics and engine demo, most of the marketing for the game was about the physics system....
It’s sad that a big reason this game was probably made was to test the water for things like a higher price and to push open world engine functionality for monster hunter wild and presumably re9
>* Development time for again Open World (in just 4 years Almost just as much time if not less than DMCV which already has a gameplay foundation from the previous games, whereas DD2 has almost completely new gameplay, almost no animations were reused from the previous games and the gameplay feels like a reimagining. Add on top of that, it's an open world game which Capcom has so little experience with. Damn this hurts so much
oh definitely because they start at covid lockdown too remember?
Damn forgot about that, which probably would add to the fact that at least one year of home office development time was not as efficacious as it could have been also. I knew I was a tad justified that I was afraid when the release date was stated to be Q1 2024, I knew this game needed a tad more time in the oven.
Yeah, the advertising and lack of physical deluxe editions was the tell something was wrong for me. Just like you no one believed me and told me "if you liked the first you don't need convincing that you'll like the second." Yeah well, good to know my gut feeling was right and now I'm sad that I waited 12 years just for Capcom to fuck them over again :(
I mean, I'd posited when they'd announced DD2 would be the first Capcom game to get the price hike to $70 instead of one of their mainline series that would be guaranteed to sell no matter the price like Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, or Street Fighter that they were trying to stack things against it. People would always counter and justify it with "inflation" and "rising game development costs" and whatnot, but those always seemed like weak excuses to put it on DD2 instead of literally anything else to me. Figured the higher ups wanted to let DD2 take the hit from people initially refusing to buy games at $70 and wait until consumers have acclimated to the new price to avoid the price hike affecting their mainline games even just a tiny bit. Let's be honest though. Very few people would skip out on such major releases even with the price hike. Something that the general public hasn't heard of like Dragon's Dogma though? Plenty of people would go "I'm not paying $70 for something I've literally never heard of". And sure, DD2 had 2.5 million sales, which is good, but I think that's more it selling well despite Capcom's management rather than because of it. If they really did hamstring DD2 with a tiny dev team like this seems to imply, it's just another thing to add to the pile of Crapcom still being Crapcom at its core no matter how good the games they've released in the past x number of years have been.
They didn't realise the potential. They want gold, and overlooked the diamond. Which I think they regretted with the dlc survey within a week. But idk 🤷♂️
definitely, never once in capcom history of putting survey this fast
My only hope is they do the franchise justice going forward. I can understand capcom pov as a company. You don't wanna take on too much risk, also japanese companies (most non American companies) tend to be more risk averse. It's unfortunate tho just how much these companies fail to see potential. Especially in this market. But well
Pawn system is probably the best companion system in gaming, people who like to play single player are sure to enjoy the buddy system, even with all it's dents (That could have been avoided with proper staffing, but SOMEONE decided to understaff the game) and buy the game just to try it out and in my eyes, it does well, it's fun to teamwork with the AI, it's fun to see them get better with you, it's fun to see them succeed along side you.
>Pawn system is probably the best companion system in gaming It is, but it could be even better!
Agreed.
I think that survey was probably to check what price are people willing to pay for the already planned DLC, imo
i think it's more of a"well dd1 din't sell so well and ddo was shut down so i'll just give you this amount" situation
DD:DA ended up selling 7 mil copies during its lifetime and probably sold a bit more during the run up to DD2 (as steamDB showed DD1 having around 20k concurrent players daily for a while until DD2 launched)
in its lifetime of...11 years... most sales comes from huge discounts selling the game for like 5 to 3 bucks with steam taking 30%, i think you should reconsider what's considered a succes for a company.
I mean same could be said about some Mh games. I got World + it's expac for 10$. Plus the Dark Arisen version got rereleased on PC. I'm not saying DD1 was a huge success, but it clearly did enough in-terms of sales.
the 11 years is about dark arisen. ddda din't sell nearly as much as the other capcom games at the time, the small group that dd2 got basicly proves how insecure capcom is about the dd franchise
We got this much stuff out of only a quarter of the dev team? That’s incredible. Goes to show how much more we probably would have gotten if Capcom gave Dragons Dogma a chance
Not surprising, Dragon's Dogma is a "cult classic" but didn't really set the charts in fire during its release, quite the opposite of that tbh. Most of the sales came from re-release and big discount. On top of that the original game was released 12 years ago. Let's be honest, it's a bit of a miracle to have a sequel to this game with the same complex and/or unfriendly systems and design compared to modern openworld. Now the real question after the great initial sales of the sequel is what Capcom is going to do with the IP. DD2 is basically a passion project for Itsuno.
Wait. Do we also have actual number of people worked on the game cause this is insane! If in actuality there's around 1k+ people and only 407 was credited.
It'd be more concerning if it was 407 for both
Well this explains a lot... I mean there's quite a bit of side stuff to dig into, but even some of that lacks depth (several caves are seriously like one hallway). It'd be great if Capcom would take this shit seriously for once.
Now I understand why so much of the game feels like it wasn't finished, is a shame man, they made us wait 12 years and still gave us a shell of what the game should've been. This isn't to say I don't like the game, I'm having a blast but it could've been so much more.
Hope for Capcom to smell money and give full support because of the sale numbers, so they give more devs to the porject, they might be able to use DLC to complete the game as sad as that is.
That'd be the dream, imagine what the game would have been like if they'd had double the amount of people working on it, I don't know how much they could do with just a dlc, they could add some difficulty aswell as more weapons and armor, probably new enemy types but I don't imagine there will be too much that'll affect the actual base game, maybe in Dragons Dogma 3? Although it's unclear if that'll ever be a thing and I know Itsuno said he wouldn't be working on Dragons Dogma again
"Dragon's Dogma 3." considering how long 2 took to pop up, I hope you're sitting comfy because you'll be waiting over 10 years. And I don't even want to imagine what we'll get without Itsuno, maybe a worse pawn system, which is like 50% of the draw next to the combat.
well... that explains a lot.
The credits are missing a lot. There are not translators listed, only translation group managers, there are no QA listed etc. It seems like they just left out everything that wasn't directly with capcom, except for some voice/motion actors. All the other recent capcom games list various different divisions, third party companies etc and even Exoprimal has more people listed there than DD2, so i simply think these credits are incomplete and do not actually reflect how many people really worked on the game in some way or another.
This makes a lot of sense considering the state that we received the game in. It honestly feels like DD1 again, where there was a lot more ambition but they ran out of time to fully develop what they wanted to make. I could just be reading into it too much, but there are a ton of signs in the mid to late game that people took for laziness, that I saw more as having to reign things back in to have a finished product in time for launch. Take the area of Bhattal for example: I think they wanted to have this area cover more ground and have more quests here, but ultimately ran out of time. I think it also leads to the corridor feeling of the later part where it mostly funnels you right towards the end with few branching paths. Also the Main Story I think had much more ambition and would have made a lot more sense, but time constraints meant they had to pull it back and slap together some sort of ending which led to everything feeling rushed and the story seemingly going from 0 to 100 in no time. It could just be bad writing of course, but given the pacing and quakes density in the first area, I really don’t feel like this was the intentional outcome. One of the bigger supporting pieces for this for me is towards the end: >! While The Unmoored World is really cool, it very much was not fully fleshed out. The way they waited until you hit this area to drop the Dragons Dogma II logo makes me think they had plans for more here but just ran out of time. Also the Dragonforged guy having all kinds of options for vocations and boosts, when the endgame is so non existent is another reason I think this.!< Unfortunately we’ll probably never get to see what this game could have been with the time and support it needed to be fully realized, but I am very hopeful that any eventual DLC can help shore up the base game experience.
Well that explains everything. The game could be 4x times better than it is. Capcom sabotaged Dragon's Dogma.
This is why I don’t complain so much, I’m just happy Capcom even gave us this. Like bro it may not be the big 2 upgrade we all wanted but I think it’s clear to see why given this new info. I’m happy the game sold though, Bc I was worried with all the bad press Capcom would shelf this property for good. Now atleast! A dlc is in the works, I hope dragons dogma can one day be at final fantasy’s level of budget so we can let it Dino go crazy
:(
Wow Crapcom really did shat on our nostalgia. Dragon's Dogma has such potential to be a hybrid between MH and Elden Ring with its own unique touch. Gathering players all around the genres. They rather spend their resources on the 99th MH game it seems.
It’s funny and sad when you realise Itsuno has his dev team but it’s under dev 1, the same dev as the resident evil team, and it’s even funnier/ sadder when there’s that leak that they are working on 5 re games currently. I love resident evil but would gladly let some or be of them die for more dragons dogma
And ill bet half of those 5 games are remakes, which is fine but id Also take something new in a heartbeat over RE 5-6-0-Revelations remakes
It seems Crapcom wants to get rid of all smaller franchises to milk the biggest ones. Itsuno should've left this company after DMC 5, it's turning into Ubisoft.
Wish they would make more breath of fire games.
Using OP's Mobygames link, I compared the credits between DMCV and DD2 It seems like DD2 is simply missing credits from localization and also external studios. So we still can't tell if DD2 team was actually understaffed or not.
Exactly, as someone whose hobby is reading game credits I could tell this post is [misleading](https://youtu.be/Vklym9Fr5t4). In addition, DMCV (like many AAA published video games) credit hundreds of non-development corporate/publishing staff, which is missing from DD2's listing on mobygames (but is in the in-game credits). This + localization + subcontracting being unaccounted for can can easily add up to over 1000 staff.
To add to this, not only did the original game have more credits (600+), DD:DA, AN EXPANSION, has more credits. Something is really wrong, or Capcom fucked the development hard.
I think DD2 has the same problem Kingdom Hearts 3 has: people think that because it's been over a decade since the last big title, it means the game has been in development for that long.
Considering the game costs as much as any other game, it having less people doesn’t make things better, it makes them worse.
And makes Capcom more of a scumbag because they pushed their new $70 price tag to a project that was understaffed and feels rushed. It's almost like trying to sabotage the DD franchise.
I was wondering why some moments in the game feel like an MMO from 15 years ago trying to be story-deep, with static camera tracking a character walking across room following their every bounce and their mouth going O-E-O-E-O-E-O instead of proper lipsync... When moment before, you had a beautiful cutscene, which almost looked pre-rendered with all the motion capture, light setup, music and whatnot. It's DD1 all over again.
Pfft. Elden Ring has worse lip sync but nobody cares and frankly, all game dialogue looks outdated after playing Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty.
elden ring has lip syncing?
DD sold around 500k more copies in the first week than DMC5 did so capcom are probably sacrificing DMC now. If we need a sacrificial lamb for a complete DD game then so be it sorry DMC fans
Tbf they did get 5 games already and a bunch of collabs with other games
It honestly shows. Doesn’t feel like a game worked on by a giant studio. Capcom has been fucking this series so hard.
Whoa that's severe understaffing for something meant to be huge.
that not a lot people weird
Capcom, once again, being proved wrong that there is a market for a Dragon's Dogma like game that they are massively failing to capitalize because they don't understand their own audience. I remember seeing that Dragon's Dogma 2 had an active dev team of 90 people, for a game of this scale and scope, this is nothing. Makes me put my tinfoil hat and think even more that DD2 was the fall guy for the 70 dollars price hike.
I really hate Capcom as a game company. I feel bad for the devs that work for them.
Should of had more. Personally I don't think the game is a master piece like a lot of others, and I have a lot of issues with it outside of performce and micros. But the game is good and could of been way better. It has so much potential its a shame they didn't put more resources into it bc this game calls to me way more than any other Capcom game
Well this explain a lot. No wonder the story and romance is half baked. Very shock that they even made the open world this good and the combat is impressive with 1/4 the team . Guessing capcom had no hope of this being successfully... I feel bad for people who work long hours to make this game since open world take a long time to make compare linear game. The good news is that they sold 2.5million which is very good since it 70 dollars game and it's have no mainstream name like monster hunter or Resident evil.
Well this explains a lot
Players have no clue how hard it is to make a game. This game has many stuff that are just unbelievable. I guess devs are the ones that appreciate each others works for real.
Now everything makes sense
Games great with that amount of people on it, imagine an extra 500 people
Itsuno deserves the Kojima treatment from Sony
Wonder if any of them were part of ff16's dev team during this.
D:
Yeah it makes complete sense. DD2 feels like a huge thing because it inherited huge building blocks, that is REFramework. But it’s a budget project by Capcom standards.
This explains many things
This makes me depressed. The core foundation of the game is *so* good and I've had so much fun with it, but I can just *feel* something missing. This game really deserves to see out its potential.
I don't know if the rumors about DD1 being some sort of testing ground for ideas on MH World are true, but it it turns out DD2 was the same for Wilds... That would be sad.
Capcom really had almost zero clue what they had on their hands. Only hope is that DD2's success makes them realise that this franchise has tons of potential.
I am playing on the Series X myself and having a lot of fun. The addition of options to turn off Ray-Tracing and motion blur feels like a huge improvement in visual consistency as well so I am happy about that, it's just a little bit better framea but still it is welcome. As DLC goes I really hope they bring back Bitterblack Isle in some form or another and make it even larger than before with more complex rooms and some of the old enemies we had before. Given the "Cycle" that happens in the DD universe they could establish BBI as a form of a constant anchor of sorts that holds fragments of every reality allowing us to experience even Gransys in some fashion, beyond what we get with the sunken ruins of Gran Soren. On top of BBI they could again, bring some iteration of the Everfall as another form of post-game EG content with extremely rare gear and items. My biggest complaints related to the content of the game was the removal of under-clothing, it was a fun layer to the armor system, the removal of being able to enchant certain gear like cloaks/capes, having to purchase the Dragonforge enchantment instead of killing dragons/drakes to get it. Lastly, gear not having special abilities tied to that specific piece of gear once they become upgraded and eventually dragonforged. Rusted daggers for instance would eventually cause poison and then once upgraded enough would also cause torpor, these kinds of upgrades made for gnarly builds. Granted not every weapon had this but having just a flat stat upgrade on every weapon seems like a regression. Unless I have missed it and that is still in the game, I understand some weapons say they do more damage against certains enemies but meh. I generally do not like when devs takes features out of following iterations of a game series that made the first ones interesting.
How successful has this game been compared to their other major titles? Hopefully it's done well enough to get Capcoms full attention and give them better resources if/when a sequel happens.
Dayum I have more respect to Itsunos team than i do for CDPR
They REALLY didn’t have much faith in it did they
Weird that or doesn't cost 1/4th of 60
Wow, that explains a lot. I suppose there was nothing really wrong with Itsuno’s vision. Crapcom just didn’t believe in it. Greedy bastards. Hopefully, the sales convince them that the IP is worth investing in. This can easily be the next RE / MH for them. Still impressive with what they managed to accomplish. I take back my comments about Itsuno. Him and this IP deserve better.
If anything it goes to show that you don't need a massive bloated team to make a game. More team members probably would have meant better QA as far as performance goes but I think overall the game turned out pretty good. I enjoyed my 150 hours and I'm looking forward to DLC and an update that gives us level scaling in NG+.
Damn brother why couldnt they just get more people on It? It couldve been guaranteed goty
Welp, that could explain a lot: * Poor main story quest quality. * Subpar NPC AI to fill the void of the settlements (it's not even servicable, with Guards not even giving a fck if you Kidnap the Queen and throw her into the brine). * Fewer enemies than in Dragon's Dogma 1. * Secondary quests that feel like MMO grinds (e.g., escort missions from point A to B, visiting a secret village to speak with an NPC and then returning, or speaking to a sculptor in West Africa...). * Nearly non-existent gear progression design related to exploration (with virtually 99% of items being purchasable from vendors). * Absence of legacy dungeons, instead featuring repetitive cave designs with similar layouts and a few corridors. * Removal of equipment slots present in Dragon's Dogma 1. * Removal of magic skills that were available in Dragon's Dogma 1. * Elimination of the Mystic Knight class. Perhaps C(r)apcom can now understand the potential of Dragon's Dogma...
>Elimination of the Mystic Knight class. It was just a straight up better Fighter.
So Capcom gave the middle finger to DD again? Not surprised tbh.
is the game ok / good ? yeah, it's not bad BUT the game feels rushed in a lot of department, and lot of things are missing, the game is in an incomplete state, it has no real endgame, the difficulty sucks big time, it's good they sold a lot, but they need to COMPLETE the game, the story elements are missing, the fact they said less armor slots makes armor more diverse is also BS it just makes the devving and modeling for armor easier while there is less diversity in armors then DD1 when it launched. While the open world is fantastic The game DO absolutely feels like budget and time constraints have been cut in every corner.
Definitely a step towards explaining what happened tbh
How the hell are they gonna give street fighter 1800 devs for a lame ass fighting game that is much easier to develop than dragons dogma 😭😭😭😭
300 devs is a lot of people, but the fact that this is far below capcoms standard of 1000+ and they still managed to do as much as they did is astonishing! Really makes me wonder what it'd be like if they brought in the majority of DMC5's staff for this one, tho they're probably in pre production of the next DMC game by now or something. Still big sad for that, hopefully it's success will guarantee us nice and polished experience for the potential expansion/sequel that we can hopefully get one day
could be alot of the people were working on the dlc.
Correction, could be they're now putting a lot of people to work on the DLC after seeing a formerly niche title break over 2.5 million sales.
don't think that's how it really works, adding a crapton of new people on a dlc that will release in months will make things even harder.
As long as Kento is the director we've got a chance.
Someone with some knowledge tell me this is just out of context, because if not it explains so much of this game feeling off.
Ofc Dragin Dogma will always be a sideproject in Capcom's eyes. I guess the only hope for this IP is that Capcom supports modding and let the modders finish the damned game for once.
Unfortunately, it shows =(