Dragon's Dogma 2 received its first proper patch earlier today, following its popular yet controversial launch last week. It's a small update that likely won't do much to quell the extensive reports of performance issues with the PC version, but it nonetheless makes a few notable improvements to Capcom's eccentric fantasy RPG.
The headline change is the introduction of a new "New Game" option, which lets players "start a new game when save data already exists". It is, frankly, wild that Dragon's Dogma 2 launched without this feature. Restarting an RPG a few hours in to tweak your character and class is practically a tradition at this point. But better late than never, I suppose.
After this, the most important change makes "the quest that allows players to acquire their own dwelling (where they can save and rest) available earlier in the game." Purely on principle, I'm all for making it easier for people to own their own house. Presumably though, the reason for this is less to do with progressive housing policy, and more that players were getting frustrated at the length of time they had wait before having control over their own saving.
Aside from this, Capcom has tweaked the availability of "Art of Metamorphosis" items at Pawn Guilds, increasing the purchasable number to 99. These items are used to alter the appearance of characters. Given how extensive the game's character creator is (and the fact you can customise pawns) I imagine these have been selling out faster than half-price Steam Decks.
The patch notes also list fixes to "miscellaneous" bugs and text display issues, as well as a specific issue "related to the display of models under some specific settings" and an "improvement to visual quality when DLSS Super Resolution is enabled."
You can read the full patch notes here.
All these changes are welcome, but they're unlikely to do much to shift Dragon's Dogma 2 away from its current "mixed" rating on Steam. While some of these negative reviews stem from a slightly overblown reaction to the game's extensive, but largely innocuous list of launch DLC, the bigger issue is the game's performance.
In a separate announcement, Capcom explained that the framerate issues many players are experiencing derive from heavy CPU load, as "a large amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and calculating the impact of their physical presence in various areas". But this doesn't change the fact that it's a problem to which Capcom currently lacks a solution. The studio says it is "looking into ways to improve performance in the future." Let's hope those improvements arrive soon.
Avowed is a thoroughly old-fashioned RPG adventure, but after the disappointments of Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Starfield, that might be exactly what we need
Obsidian's designers discuss how they decide the size of Avowed's environments: 'We don't want to have those empty, meaningless spaces just to have them'
