Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen review for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Switch 2

While two years might seem like a long time to wait for an expansion, I can easily say that Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen was well worth the wait. Releasing this week for a variety of platforms, this major addition to the base game includes a new northern area to explore that hosts all sorts of enemies, monsters, puzzles, and other dangers that are sure to test even the most experienced Arisen out there.

While the content of Dark Arisen isn’t available directly from the start, it doesn’t take an exceptional amount of time to reach the necessary quests to unlock the new area and content. The game suggests that you be around level 20 in order to unlock one of the new features, The Lost Rites, while the actual new zone of Norgan is ideally started around level 40.

When I started my adventure, I went ahead and created a new character, and then started the new content using those specific level guidelines. Those suggested levels seem spot on to me, with the first Lost Rites dungeon being easily accessible and acting as a quick tutorial for how those dungeons will work, so while the enemies encountered there were tough at level 20, they certainly weren’t insurmountable. The next Lost Rite dungeon I tackled was definitely tougher, culminating in a boss fight that saw me burning through a hefty amount of supplies in order to complete, and the difficulty for these dungeons just ramps up from there.

In addition to just being difficult, some of these dungeons will have unique requirements, like no magic attacks or grimoires, restricting your vocation, or allowing you to only take your main pawn into battle with you. Obviously these requirements will make completing these dungeons even tougher, giving a solid challenge to those continuing their adventure in New Game + or through the new addition of Hard Mode.

The new area featured in Dark Arisen, Norgan, is unlocked via a short quest line that sees you dropped into an unforgiving snowstorm in desperate need of shelter. As a sort of skill test, you’ll also have to face off against one of the new enemy types, the barbarian-like Beorcan’s, which at level 40 were actually pretty tough to beat. Once you get through that initial encounter and make it to your starting village, you’ll quickly be introduced to a variety of new mechanics that help you gear up for the challenges that Norgan provides.

One of the major additions found in Dark Arisen’s Norgan area is the new Relic system. Instead of just looting a sword or piece of armor like you do in the base game, every piece of equipment you pick up will be a relic, requiring you to visit an NPC and have them appraise the relic before finding out what it actually is. The relics are divided up into various categories, and can even have varying degrees of rarity. You’re more likely to see better pieces drop off of large monsters and bosses but even your normal, run-of-the-mill encounters will often yield a relic or two.

This increase in equipment drops means that Dark Arisen becomes far more loot driven than the base game, which still had ample amounts of gear to find, giving me significant upgrades for my character as I progressed through each new zone in Norgan. Another neat aspect of the relics is that they can have unique abilities that are randomized from one piece to the next, giving you additional resistances or even changing up how certain skills work for various vocations. For instance, for the Archer you might get a bow that gives an upgrade to the Spiral Arrow skill, which adds an explosive arrow to the end of the multiple hits that ability already provides.

Dark Arisen also offers up a new mobility function for use in Norgan, which allows the Arisen to employ a climbing hook in order to reach otherwise inaccessible locations. The hook does require access to a tether point, scattered throughout the map, but these locations are pretty easy to spot and will be permanently highlighted on the map once you find them. This feature adds some additional verticality to your exploration, and feels like a natural extension of the tools an adventurer would use in the frozen north.

Speaking of frozen, a new hazard you’ll have to contend with in Norgan comes from good old Mother Nature herself. While adventuring, you’ll notice the weather take a turn for the worse and soon enough you’ll be engulfed in a raging blizzard, unable to see your way forward more than a few feet. In addition, your mini-map will whiteout, obscuring any icons you might have placed. You’ll also have to contend with a new freezing effect that’ll hamper your stamina meter, causing it to automatically reduce over time unless you manage to get somewhere warm.

I look at the blizzard effect in the same way I do nighttime in the base game. You can absolutely stay in it and still explore, it just makes it more challenging and tougher to do so. The game also gives you some tools to help contend with the weather change, like a compass that’ll at least point you in the right direction for whatever your active quest is, or a specialization you can unlock for your pawn that’ll cause them to guide you towards the nearest campfire. It’s a neat additional challenge that makes sense for the zone, and it does a solid job of heightening the tension, especially when you stumble across a large monster lumbering around in the snow.

If I had to complain about something in Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, it’d be the over-reliance on palette swaps for enemy designs. This isn’t necessarily unusual, since the base game was certainly guilty of it as well. For instance, the Beorcan enemies, while certainly beefier than the regular humanoid foes you’d encounter in Vermund or Bakkahl, still slot into the same warrior, mage, archer archetypes that the other human enemies had, and act much in the same fashion as those enemies did. Likewise, you’ll run into a couple different types of Saurians, another Harpy variant, and so on.

Bosses fare a bit better when it comes to unique designs, but there’s still a lot of repeated elements that are disappointing to see. The overall venue of Norgan certainly looks unique compared to the prior zones, and it’d be nice to see newer, exciting designs extend out to the types of enemies and NPC’s you encounter there. One of the more egregious palette swaps in Dark Arisen is with the Sage. I won’t spoil who or what they are, but they take one of the coolest designs in the base game and just turn it into a shade of purple. It still looks neat, sure, but it definitely feels like more could have been done there.

Repetitive enemy design aside, I still had a blast with Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen. Having not touched the base game in over a year, it was an absolute blast to revisit the game as whole, and the new Norgan area really breathes new life into the game with tons of quests to do and loot to uncover. This is easily an expansion I can see myself devoting many more hours to in the future, and if you had any affinity for Dragon’s Dogma 2, then you should absolutely check out the Dark Arisen expansion.

Note: Capcom provided us with a Dragon’s Dogma 2 and Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen PC code for review purposes.