Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 was released last week after being announced roughly 2 years ago. The game’s director Hideaki Itsuno and the team started the development with a focus on making the game better than its predecessor, 2012’s Dragon’s Dogma. The first game’s open-world environment was indeed very impressive, but the team decided to take things to the next level.
While this may seem like a good idea, at one point they felt overloaded as the open world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 grew bigger than they originally planned. Although the workload was increased, the game didn’t seem rushed at all as they made the entire map immersive to keep the players hooked. The team worked hard and crossed all the expectations to give fans an exciting gaming experience.
Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s map was initially planned to be smaller
In January 2024, Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s director Hideaki Itsuno appeared for an interview with IGN to talk about the game’s development. During the conversation, Itsuno explained that the game’s open world was initially planned to be just 1.5 times bigger than its predecessor, Dragon’s Dogma. However, the map was increased in size by 4 times by the end of development. Itsuno explained,
“As far as map size, I said I wanted it to be at least 1.5 times bigger, or even twice as big if possible, but it ended up being roughly four times as big by the time we were done. That’s not a precise measurement, but I’d say there’s about quadruple the volume. That’s what’s causing us to struggle right now. There’s way too much for us to look over right now, which is making things really difficult on us.”
The massive world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 is split between two major kingdoms, Vermund and Battahl. The immersive open world is one of the main things that helped the game stand out and indeed made it much better than its predecessor.
Last year, Itsuno told VGC that he was very inspired by the open world of Grand Theft Auto 5 while working on Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Hideaki Itsuno and his team made the Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s open world as interesting as possible
Further in the interview, Itsuno was asked if the bigger map would have more playable content. He explained that there wouldn’t be any moments where the player would feel bored as they made the environment as interesting as possible,
“We’ve placed items on the map and figured out ways to guide the player’s eye so that there aren’t any moments when they feel bored – The map ended up being bigger than we expected because that step was so much easier for us, and the larger map also means more stuff in it – I feel like we made the game about as big as we possibly could.”
Itsuno started the projects with two things in mind: He wanted to create an RPG that “wasn’t a chore to play” and a game that players could play alone but still feel like an online experience.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on March 22, 2024. Upon release, the game was well-received by the fans, in fact, many labeled it as one of the best RPG games of all time.
