Dragon’s Dogma is the best game ever made! In this article, we’ll discuss why Dragon’s Dogma is actually the Best Game of All Time, and why you should play it, based on my completely unbiased and objective opinion that I am sure 100% of readers will agree with and will generate commentary only telling me how perfectly correct I am.

Dragon’s Dogma is the Best Game Ever Made

We’ll go over how the game’s director pitched this unique idea and gamestyle long before Souls games became a thing, the game’s unique mashup of western and japanese RPG approaches, it’s delightful Monster Hunter touches. And of course we’ll go through the lukewarm initial reception and sales and how the nascent souls fanbase would make it into a cult classic, passing the test of time thanks to its interesting mechanics and charming stoicism. And in case you didn’t know, Dragon’s Dogma was also in our Best Games of the Decade choices!

This is the second in a series of articles exploring how many games have gotten impressively huge and committed fanbases, and what it’s great about each of them. If you haven’t noticed it yet, the title is not serious!

How Dragon’s Dogma came about BEFORE Souls was a thing

The story of Dragon’s Dogma is both unique and mundane. It begins with one of the most accomplished directors in gaming, Capcom’s Hideaki Itsuno. You have probably heard from him as the man behind the masterpiece that was Devil May Cry 3.

But despite his career focus in Action Games, Itsuno’s real passion was actually in the imagining of a complex RPG with a pawn system, which he had conceptualized since very young, said to be the year 2000. It wasn’t until 2008, after wrapping up production of DMC4, that Itsuno would get to propose that idea to Capcom along several other projects.

The timing of this is very interesting, as Dragon’s Dogma has conceptual overlaps with Demon’s Souls, that had not yet been revealed or released. Had Itsuno gotten to work on his idea earlier, would we all know him instead of Miyazaki, and talk about dogma-like instead of souls-like? There’s a good chance that would be the case!

The “Western” JRPG mashup & it’s glorious Monster Hunter Feels

The souls overlap is well-known to fans of both series, but for those of you who are missing the gap, let’s delve into what Dragon’s Dogma set out to be: a mainly single player RPG experience with a mild, casual online “brush” with others, something that would replicate the feeling of hanging out on a bulletin board (modern day forums or discord communities) where you share things asynchronously and only indirectly, but can still connect to others.

In addition, Dragon’s Dogma was to be a Japanese take on the open world concept of games like Oblivion, spicing it up with the addictiveness of JRPGs like Dragon Quest, but developed by a team that understood Action combat and could deliver a deeper combat experience.

We have seen a great deal of open-world action RPGs over the years, [but never] one that really put everything together in the action parts. We figured that if there hasn’t been a game made by people who understand how action works, then we ought to do it ourselves. We wanted a game where the player is thrown into the world and needs to figure out how to stay alive via nothing but his own controller

Hideaki Itsuno to Famitsu, 2011

If this is sounding just like the Demon’s Souls pitch, it’s because well, it was, and as you can expect Capcom’s reaction was the same as Sony’s original reaction: Skepticism, budget restrictions and eventual delays.

Nevertheless, the project was given the green light, and so a team of action developers became RPG developers, with unexpected results such as the accidental merge of Monster Hunter concepts into the combat. This was not intentional and the rumor that Dragon’s Dogma was a diverted Monster Hunter project is inaccurate, as it seems that it was rather the natural outcome of having Monster Hunter team members working on the project.

‘Monster Hunter’ was its own series, its own franchise, and it just so happened that we wanted to make a realistic fantasy-based action game, and because we had the staff available to make something like that, we’re able to make this game. The ideas for ‘Dragon’s Dogma’ came from a completely different place

Hideaki Itsuno

As Itsuno’s team was still developing Dragon’s Dogma, Demon’s Souls launched and had its initial struggles with poor reception. Those early negatives are likely part of what made Souls so successful, as it gave FromSoftware a push to work with the multiplatform Namco instead, but they likely influenced Capcom’s perception of the quality of their version of the concept, and thus the project was delayed and launched in 2012, 7 months after Dark Souls.

A Lukewarm Launch like Demon’s Souls

Dragons Dogma was officially launched on May 2012, and it enjoyed a good reception and high sales in Japan, where it broke some records for fast-selling IPs of the time. Western media was lot more lukewarm, with the game barely averaging an 8 out 10 from most outlets and getting criticized for lacking proper multiplayer, being too “hardcore” and missing out in character narrative depth. (Yes this sounds familiar too!)

But that poorly understood audience that would become the hardcore avalanche of souls players noticed the game and sales started to ramp up, reaching 1.5 million units one month after launch. Since Capcom had adjusted the project’s budget to target 1 million units sold, it was an immediate commercial success, and this set in motion development for an expansion, Dark Arisen, that would arrive a year later. As more and more of these players discovered the game, our community became more and more obsessed with it, eventually resulting in the creation of our Dragon’s Dogma Wiki, which is the first non-fromsoftware wiki we made for the community.

So what was it about the game that managed to eventually convert so many people to the brand? Let’s discuss!

Why Dragon’s Dogma is the Best Game Ever

Much like Demon’s Souls, Dragon’s Dogma was conceptualized by someone who wanted to have an explorative RPG experience but with good combat. This means that rather than trying to mix and match popular bits and pieces of games to create a marketing juggernaut, the developers were instead making something new and unique that they thought you’d want to play.

This sincere craving to create a new concept and give old ideas new deliveries drove a series of development decisions that resulted in what we can all agree are “quirky” choices and details, such as the fact that your character height and weight affect your carry capacity, their arm length your climbing stamina, and your overall size will determine whether you can use some specific tiny holy shortcuts around. And it’s those details that make the “secret sauce” of why Dragon’s Dogma is unmissable.

I love open world games, but it is not often they can be enjoyed without the bothersome encumbrance of obnoxious quest markers. It’s rare to be allowed to get lost in the exploration and discovery aspects, motivated by the feeling of being the person to discover it, and the rewarding nature of putting things together from context, trial and error, with uncertainty as to what is hidden behind the next corner.

Your Dragon’s Dogma experience begins like an on-rails RPG with some mild party management, followed by a simple setup for your hero to depart a fishing village and head to the big capital. The ridiculous amount of time you then spend between that first step and making it to progress the main story is entirely your fault. And you just can’t help it! What is that item over there? Wait, are the enemies changing at night? Should I help this NPC? Hold on, I’ll hire this pawn first. But oh, I like that one now, how does this work? it says I got mail how do I get it!? Oh no I put one toe into the water and I’m dead.

I have such fond memories of all my little discoveries as I took my first and completely noobish steps around Gransys. But like most games that receive high praise from me, it’s the layers of complexity that make or break a game. You can casually play Dragon’s Dogma without understanding its mechanics. But if you do spend the time on them, you can find just so much detail, nuance and extravagant coding. That carrot you picked up 3 days ago? Yes, it rotted now. Oh you worked hard on a quest for this lily that gives you extra XP? Well you better put it in some flask or it’ll rot too!

Or perhaps you thought to approach a bandit camp for a quest, only to discover if there’s a male in your party you’ll all be attacked on sight. Or did you accidentally give too many gifts to a vendor and now he’s doing googly eyes at you everytime you approach. And of course, there’s the going around falsifying items so you can hand them over for quests and also keep them… but are you sure you want to? The consequences may be dire!

On and on the small details of what can happen and the small ramifications of my every trip made the game feel more and more like a very freeform RPG where I am not in complete control of every quest progress and outcome, but rather experiencing a world and slowly unveiling its secrets.

And of course, then there’s the monster hunting. Come about almost by chance, as discussed by the director, the game features some massive monsters that can be hunted, sometimes in specific grounds or locations and at specific times. These hunts are engaging battles where your whole party has a role, and the climbing of the monsters to attack them creates an extra layer of awesome.

Learning how to hunt these monsters and target “parts” to get materials for loot ugprades made the on-foot exploration of the extensive map all the more rewarding, and it even brought me to appreciate the initial lack of fast-travel, as it forced me through paths that had hidden loot, quests, and enemies.

The more I played Dragon’s Dogma, the more I liked it, and for me the crowning moments of it would come with the Everfall, the post-game dungeon crawling that turned the game from an exploration and story adventure to an addictive lootfest of Ur-Dragon farming. It was that transition that would keep people hooked in, and eventually be fully realized in the DLC.

The Test of Time and Upcoming Sequel

So we have established that, much like Demon’s Souls, Dragon’s Dogma started off to mixed reception and a lot of doubt and skepticism from press and audience. But the game’s subtle appeal slolwly won people over by word of mouth, so by the time Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen came around one year later, the overall tone had already shifted. Take IGN for example, that had given the release a 7.5 score, and gave the expansion bundle an 8.9 instead. By 2020, 8 years after that 7.5 score, that same IGN would rank Dragon’s Dogma at N9 in the “best modern role-playing games”.

The long-term appeal of the game and its unique mechanics have slowly but surely set it apart from the rest as a must-play experience. Over time, sales just kept going up and up because the game’s style remains singular, without emulation, leaving fans to want more of it, with the total sales number surpassing a completely unexpected 7 million units sold despite low marketing investment and the supposed “niche” appeal of the genre, that has kept Capcom from investing on the international releases of the game.

So now we are looking at a 2024 release of Dragon’s Dogma 2. Much like the first game, it approaches rather humbly, with cautious marketing that seems more focused on conveying the developer’s vision than convincing you that you should buy it. And that could not make me happier. I want Dragon’s Dogma 2 to simply be more of that awesome experience. Sure, add quality of life, improve systems, surprise me with new mechanics and systems! But, please, keep it quirky, unexpected and unrelentingly committed to being just what the developers really wanted to make.

It surely worked for FromSoftware, and I’m craving to see what the sequel will bring us. We already played a bit of Dragon’s Dogma 2, so check out that video if you’re interested, or turn notifications on because there’s a developer panel coming soon and we’ll be covering all the new reveals. In the meantime, I fully recommend that you pick up the old game and give it a go. Graphics are dated, mechanics are stiff, but it’s still so much fun!

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So what do you think? Is Dragon’s Dogma your favorite game ever? Or maybe it was at some point? What other titles would you like us to cover on this series and why? Let us know in the comments below!