HomeNewsDragon’s Dogma 2
Dragon’s Dogma 2 expands the original game’s absolutely daft NPC affinity systemOn the flipside, your beloved might die
On the flipside, your beloved might die
Image credit:Pushsquare/Capcom
Image credit:Pushsquare/Capcom
One of the sillier aspects of the original Dragon’s Dogma was accidentally falling head over heels for some rando innkeeper, and having them appear beside you as your sweetheart during the ending scenes, much to the surprise of many players who didn’t realise they were hitting on every NPC they did a favour for.
Dragons Dogma - Caxton Love?Watch on YouTube
Dragons Dogma - Caxton Love?
The Affinity system returns inDragon’s Dogma 2and is considerably more involved, according to series director Hideaki Itsuno. “There will be a lot of it, and it will be even more pronounced,” he toldAutomatonin a new interview today. “It’s almost the entire reason why we made the game open world.
“There will be many events that occur [or] don’t occur depending on Affinity, and relationships between NPCs will also be important,” Itsuno added. “For example, if you raise your Affinity with the parent of a child, your Affinity with the child will increase as well. On the other hand, NPCs can also fall out with each other. We’ve “powered-up” the Affinity feature a lot… and sneaked in a lot of things.”
The sting in the tail here is that Dragon’s Dogma 2 NPCs aren’t just sympathetic emotional beings, they’re also eminently killable. “Our basic premise since the start of the series has been ‘creating a fantasy world simulator,’ so NPCs dying is a normal occurrence,” Itsuno commented later. “If there’s an NPC you care for in a town, you will need to protect them as you fight, or hold them and run.”
That’s “hold them and run” not as in “cling together desperately in the face of a dark world” but “throw them over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes and gallop off into the woods”. Picking people up in Dragon’s Dogma is as effective a means of safeguarding treasured NPCs as it is removing stubborn guards from checkpoints.
Should an NPC die, youareable to resurrect them using a Wakestone, but Wakestones aren’t exactly growing on trees, and Capcom’s hope is that the threat of losing your favourite villagers will teach you to play kindly. “When there is death, we take it seriously, and it affects how we act,” producer Yoshiaki Hirabayashi commented, in what I consider to be a slightly unnecessary unpacking of how most human beings feel about dying. “In a world without death, I think people would be irresponsible and apathetic to their own actions.”
Well, sure, I guess. I have to confess, I think of Dragon’s Dogma 2 more likea sprawling ballpit full of griffonsthan a sobering illustration of mortality, but I’m keen to see what comes of all this, and of the expanded Affinity system. Please, don’t let me accidentally fall in love with the innkeeper again.
