The ‘game developer’s game’ is something like Frozen Synapse – Let’s be honest, we totally have lost count of the developers that are seen forfeiting their minds over its elegant, Spartan strategy to tactics – or Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, a game so broken but so compelling that it died and still had parts of its flesh picked clean by likes scavenger likes of Bioware and CD Projekt Red.
But once in a while have something like Dragon’s Dogma. On the other side, Capcom’s 2012 action-RPG seems a similar case. This was a game made with the stated goal of capitalizing on Elder Scrolls Fever, entering mere months after Skyrim and fetching with it similar fantasy citations, quest design, and open-world structure. But its Japanese creators and Capcom’s action game aptitude meant it came out quite differently, a chimeric assortment of cross-Pacific ideas.
It sold well, but it was not like it broke records. Just a decent kind of sale that a company needs to run, enough to earn a growth, a remaster and a middling MMO spin-off, but still a short profit to warrant a full sequel. But, over the years, it still manages to strike some attention towards itself in some form of rumors or whispers every now and then.
That its huge post-credits section is an inexplicable masterclass in endgame content or it’s the varied approach to classes feels, well, a step above most action-RPGs of its time. That it features one of the grandest depictions of the sheer power of magic (that one was mainly me, but seriously, look at High Bolide).
It should be the exemplary game developer’s game. We see plenty of people – Devs included – talk about it to this day. We should be seeing its standout ideas all over the place. We just aren’t.
So when we are finally starting to acknowledge the games unique approach, will we be getting any new installments into it?
Turns out maybe not.
The game’s developer in a recent interview said We consider Dragon’s Dogma to be an important franchise… But there’s nothing more I can say right now.
