One veteran Bethesda designer really, really likes Dragon’s Dogma 2 – in fact, he says that it’s the only way that he can get the same feeling his RPGs give to everyone else.
“Look, I’m not saying I appreciate Dragon’s Dogma 2 more than other folks,” Bethesda studio design director Emil Pagliarulo says on Twitter. “But when you’ve worked on Oblivion and Skyrim and will never get to experience those games quite like everyone else, DD2 offers a sense of fantasy adventure I literally can’t get anywhere else.”
Pagliarulo has been with Bethesda for years, serving as a quest designer on Oblivion, lead designer on Fallout 3 and 4, senior designer on Skyrim, and design director on Fallout 76 and Starfield. If there’s anyone who knows open-world RPGs, it’s somebody with that credit list – but it gets difficult to enjoy things you’ve spent years working on.
“And yes, I love Baldur’s Gate 3,” Pagliarulo continues, “but it’s a different vibe. Same with Solasta, and Pillars of Eternity, and Dragon Age, and pretty much every other ‘classic’ Western RPG. When people talk about the way Skyrim makes them feel, that’s how I feel playing Dragon’s Dogma 2.”
Pagliarulo singles out high points like the Pawn voice acting and direction, and the way DD2 slowly decreases your max health over the course of multiple combat encounters, which “makes you feel like your adventuring is taking its toll.” There’s also the fact that “the art direction that is straight out of D&D 3.5. The definition of classic.” Pagliarulo admires “the subtle but incredibly powerful way Vocations can be modified to suit your playstyle. There’s a tremendous amount of depth and versatility there.”
And hey, a whole lot of us in the GamesRadar+ offices would tend to agree – like our news editor Ali Jones, who wrote last week that Dragon’s Dogma 2 goes all-in on the open-world RPG design trick that made him fall in love with Skyrim and Fallout: New Vegas. There’s a world of difference between the worlds Capcom and Bethesda have built, but they still manage to capture that same spirit of adventure.
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