When Dragon’s Dogma 2 launched earlier this year, it was met with a largely positive response from critics, but garnered criticism from players for some of its more idiosyncratic design choices. Limited fast travel, arduous treks through the wilderness, and most of all, the controversial Dragonsplague left some feeling like the game was outright hostile. Now, a major Dragon’s Dogma 2 update is adding a Casual Mode that should make the game far more approachable for some players, though it may chip away at what makes the experience so special at the same time.
Casual Mode seems to be aimed at sanding off some of the roughest edges of Dragon’s Dogma 2, making it a bit easier to escape from some desperate situations. In Casual Mode, the price to stay at an inn and buy Ferrystones for fast travel is reduced. You can carry more weight without being stone, running will cost less stamina when you’re not in battle, and your maximum health will no longer deplete when you reload a save after falling in battle. But the biggest change is that Dragonsplague will no longer cause a “devastating calamity” if you let it progress too long, as Capcom puts it.
The update also brings additions ranging from additional fast travel points to new animations, plus a lengthy list of changes for several Vocations and bug fixes, but it’s Casual Mode that makes this particular patch stand out. Many of Casual Mode’s adjustments are meant to change parts of the game that some players have been unhappy with since launch, Dragonsplague being the biggest example. Dragonsplague is an illness that your AI-controlled companions can catch, and if you let it progress long enough, it can result in them wiping out an entire city’s worth of NPCs. Depending on who you ask, it was either a brilliant design choice that forces players to pay closer attention to their Pawns, or absolute BS.
Dragonsplague was rare enough that you could easily finish the entire game without thinking about it once, but some of the changes in Casual Mode will affect every playthrough. The prices for Ferrystones dropping means it’s easier than ever to teleport around the world, potentially missing some interesting encounters in the process. Lower inn fees and no consequences for reloading a save after perishing mean you have less to fear on your voyages. Playing in Casual Mode generally means you’ll have the cash to buy better equipment and move through the world much faster.
All of that is a boon for players who were turned off by Dragon’s Dogma 2’s particular brand of difficulty. While it’s easily one of my favorite games of the year, it’s absolutely not for everybody, thumbing its nose at plenty of modern design ideas that favor allowing players to approach games the way they want rather than enforcing a particular play style. For anyone who played Dragon’s Dogma 2 at launch and hated how punishing it was, Casual Mode seems like a great way to be able to experience this singular RPG without feeling like you’re being bullied.
But consider this a public service announcement that Casual Mode is absolutely not where you should start if you’re coming in fresh. The restrictions placed on players in Dragon’s Dogma 2 are a big part of what makes it great. Screwing up badly enough can have lasting consequences, but rather than ruining the game, they can actually lead to a more interesting experience. Plus, the feeling of triumphing against all the ways it makes it so difficult to progress isn’t something you’ll get from most games. And if you start in Casual Mode and then realize you’d rather have the full experience, you need to start a new save file to switch it off.
Overall, anything that lets more people enjoy Dragon’s Dogma 2 is probably a good thing. I do wish Capcom had implemented toggles for each of its Casual Mode options to let players choose what kind of assistance they want without going overboard, but as a bona fide Dragon’s Dogma 2 sicko, I’m not the target audience anyway. So if you’re hankering for a kinder, gentler version of one of Dragon’s Dogma 2, you finally have a chance to try out one of the best RPGs of the year yourself.
