All eyes are on Onimusha: Way of the Sword to complete an impressive hat trick with Capcom this year after Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata. However, long-time Dragon’s Dogma 2 fans were surprised to discover Dark Arisen, an expansion, is also coming very soon. It’s out on October 9th, and you can’t help but wonder about the short window between its announcement and launch.
As it turns out, however, Capcom has been working on the expansion since after the base game’s launch. Producer Naoto Oyama told GamesRadar, “Sorry to keep everyone waiting. We started the project during the period where, after the release of the base game, we received incredibly passionate feedback from our players who expressed a desire to play more and continue exploring.
“They wanted to enjoy more combat in this game, so we really worked hard on answering these requests. We launched the project with the concept of providing a highly accessible brand-new adventure, more combat, and we’re happy we were able to announce this and come back to the game again.”
And for those celebrating the return of Kento Kinoshita, who directed the original Dark Arisen, he’s actually been involved with Dragon’s Dogma 2 for some time. In fact, he thought about a potential expansion during development. Once Capcom worked through many of the technical issues, work on the latter began in earnest about six months after launch, and he couldn’t be happier to be directing it.
“I’m really happy to be back here as director for the new Dark Arisen. The motivation behind kicking off this project was the passionate feedback we received from players, so we really appreciate people’s support and feedback received so far.”
Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen will be available for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC, coinciding with the base game’s launch on the same day for Nintendo Switch 2. It sees players venturing to a new region and seeking out the Fallen Dragon with the help of Eir. Besides battling new enemies and taking advantage of new skills, you can hunt for relics and appraise them to bolster your arsenal. There are also 12 new Dungeons to face in the base game, which grant access to powerful new equipment. Overall, you’re looking at over 25 hours of new content.
If you’re curious about jumping in right now, a new update is available which adds the Eternal Ferrystone for infinite fast travel, improves certain equipment from dungeons, and more. Capcom has also removed pretty much all microtransactions from the game, addressing one of its bigger criticisms at launch.
