It only took me about 3 hours to come to the conclusion that Dragon's Dogma 2 is just the kind of RPG I need right now. In all honesty, I wasn't entirely convinced that I'd click with Capcom's fantasy adventure when I booted it up for the first time. As a big fan of games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, The Witcher 3, and most recently, Baldur's Gate 3, I'm always on the lookout for RPGs in a similar vein. While Dragon's Dogma 2 doesn't tick the same boxes that usually speak to me - see: choices with consequences and romance - it does scratch a particular kind of itch that I've always enjoyed in the likes of Skyrim and Fallout. Sure, there's a core story to explore, and it's not everyday that your heart's plucked out by a dragon, but exploration is absolutely where it's at when it comes to playing as the Arisen.
I've clocked just over 20 hours in the open-world setting of Vermund so far - I've yet to reach Battahl - and the majority of that time has been spent entirely away from anything to do with the main questline. The vast landscapes provide a place I can easily lose myself in, and I've lost count of the amount of times I've settled in to play the game with the intention of progressing through the story, only to get completely sidetracked from my intended path by something I've either spied on the horizon, or my pawns have pointed out. It's actually proving to be the perfect distraction when I need to switch off, and it's unexpectedly helping me deal with my unfortunately frequent spikes of anxiety.
