The pen is mightier than the sword, but it turns out that good cardio blows them both out of the water—as proven by Infected Durian, who beat Dragon's Dogma 2 with nothing but his bare hands, a crew of elite nudist supporters, and endurance running.
"Today I thought we'd do something a little bit different and do a fists-only, no armour speedrun of Dragon's Dogma 2," announces streamer Infected Durian, before embarking on a shockingly short journey in his skivvies through the lands of Vernworth and beyond (thanks, GamesRadar).
There's a few reasons why he's able to pull this off. First up, while Dragon's Dogma 2 has a NG+ system, monsters won't actually scale with your level. Despite having zero protection from the elements or axes flung his way, turns out that the laws of physics in DD2 are stats-driven: If you die when you're stabbed, you just didn't get on that grindset enough.
I say "mostly", because even so much as a stiff breeze sends his buck-naked adventurer staggering, which is where his pawns come in. The Pawns you can recruit scale off your character's level, too, so Infected Durian spends most of the run protected by a band of summoned adventurers who're contractually obligated to engage in the world's strangest game of Protect the President.
The last reason this works is because, as I found during my playthrough, the meat of DD2 comes not from a lengthy main quest, but the fact that you'll get distracted by neat little caves and monster attacks. Or, as was in my case, harpies and griffins hurling you off those useless Battahli ski lifts—something that happens to him at around 1:14:00 in the vod. See? It's not just me! I'm feeling very vindicated right now.
Dragon's Dogma 2 has a pseudo-Breath of the Wild structure where (aside from a few main story quests) the game is mostly about running from place to place, meaning you can sprint through most of it with no repercussions. And because of that aforementioned lack of scaling, NG+ is especially vulnerable to a good ol' marathon, whether you're buck-naked or armed to the teeth.
Because I'm a stickler for technicalities, his character does don clothes a couple of times. Once during a flashback sequence, and another when he's asked to attend the coronation. In fairness, that's mandatory for the main questline, despite the fact that (spoilers) you never make it into the damn place before your pawn gets a headache and takes their Rift-issued sick day at the worst possible moment.
None of this matters, though—because at around 58 minutes, Infected Durian's Arisen clings to a Troll's face and bludgeons it to death with his bare hands, which makes me want to keep quiet out of fear he'll do the same thing to me. I didn't see anything, man, carry on.
Infected Durian finished his playthrough in one hour, 42 minutes, and 32 seconds—only having to use a wakestone on himself 22 times. I've been playing Dragon's Dogma 2 with armour on this whole time, and I'm pretty sure I've died more than that, so maybe he's onto something.
