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.
