Dragon's Dogma 2 - Combat Preview (Hands-On)

Dragon's Dogma 2 feels familiar and is very impressive to play, especially in the heat of combat when you are clinging onto large beasts. We went hands-on with a one-hour demo involving large monsters and the four new classes.

At the Tokyo Game Show, Capcom is showing a demo of Dragon's Dogma 2. The demo includes four classes: The Fighter uses a one-handed sword and shield; the Archer focuses on long-range attacks using a third-person-shooter aiming system; the Mage casts spells with incantations, with more powerful spells that require longer incantations; and the Thief, who focuses on clinging onto monsters and quick attacks with a dagger. The demo also features new locations in the kingdom of Vermund and the canyon nation of Batthal.

In this video, we give you our impressions from a hands-on extended one-hour version of the TGS demo and how combat feels. We were able to play in free-roam mode and fight different monsters, including some very large ones with four health bars. One of those battles involved climbing on a griffin while it took to the air and tried to knock us off. 

Dragon's Dogma 2 feels comfortable and familiar and yet is still very impressive to play, especially in the heat of combat when you are hanging onto large beasts. Pawns return from the first game, and in this demo we had four of them. You can tell pawns to do things like lead you to destinations and back you up in combat. Pawns are still pretty goofy, which is something we loved. On the other hand, the game hasn't picked up some of the conveniences of modern Souls-like games such as lock-on mechanics. When it all connects, it feels like a combination of Monster Hunter and Shadow of the Colossus.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is the sequel to the 2012 RPG and has no current release date for launch on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC.