Dragon’s Dogma 2 reviews have gone live, and all’s right with the world. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the Metascores are buzzing. On PS5, Capcom’s open-world action RPG scored an impressive 87 out of 56 reviews, while the Xbox Series X/S version is at 88 based on 14 reviews. However, the PC version is the most impressive, standing tall at a 90 Metascore based on a respectable 34 reviews.
If the numbers aren’t enough to sway you, the quotes probably will. “A landmark release for open world action-RPG.” “A captivating journey from beginning to end.” “A fantasy adventure for the ages” – the highlights go on. For those who like playing RPGSs, Dragon’s Dogma 2 fits right in. That goes double for the development team, who worked on crafting this massive world with over one thousand NPCs, tons of secrets and an extensive amount of side content.
However, it’s not without some issues. When the developer confirmed an uncapped frame rate for the title, there was understandable concern. Now that critics have spent adequate amounts of time with the title, its technical state has been revealed as a bit…problematic, especially when it comes to the PC version.
PC Gamer tested the game with various CPUs and GPUs at Max settings with ray tracing off, the highest end consisting of a Core i7 14700KF + RTX 4070 Ti at the highest end. It notched up an impressive 118 FPS on average, with the title dropping to 93 FPS at the very least on 1080p resolution. However, when you enter a location with several buildings and NPCs – Vernworth was the example used here – it drops to 70 FPS on average and 33 FPS at the lowest.
Things get worse at 1440p resolution. Once again, the average FPS is around 89 in the open world, dropping to 69 at the least. Take a trip to Vernworth or any other city and watch it dip to 71 FPS on average and 34 FPS at the very least.
Finally, at 4K, the open world delivers 62 FPS on average and 50 FPS at the very least, while Vernworth offers the same average frame rate but 36 FPS at the least. Other CPU + GPU combos perform worse and can’t even hit 60 FPS in cities, whether it’s 1080p, 1440p or 4K. The fact that all of this is without ray tracing enabled is all the more concerning.
IGN noted similarly fluctuating performance in cities when playing on High settings at 4K and DLSS Balanced enabled with a Radeon 5800X3D and an RTX 3080. Though the frame rate does hit 60 FPS, it also drops to as low as 33 FPS in cities. In the open world on the same settings, it hit 60 FPS more consistently but still fell to as low as 39 frames per second at some points.
The good news is that with an RTX 4090, the open world delivers a consistent 60 FPS with the occasional one or two frames dropped. This is at 4K Max settings and DLSS set to Quality mode. However, step into the city, and even the mighty 4090 can’t maintain a steady 60 FPS, dropping as low as 32 FPS.
We tested the title with a Ryzen 9 5950X with an RTX 3080 Ti, 32 GB RAM and PCI E 4.0 SSD. On the highest settings at 4K with ray tracing enabled and DLSS set to Quality, performance ranged from 45 to 50 frames per second on average. Hitting that golden 60 FPS (which sometimes went up to 65) meant dropping Mesh settings to Medium and limiting textures to 2 GB. Even then, when traveling through cities, the frame rate would still fall to 55 frames occasionally – not a big deal.
The console versions aren’t necessarily without their performance issues, whether in cities or the open world. IGN was noted as having to switch from the PS5 version to PC due to motion sickness, noting that it’s the type of game where looking at the ground or up at the sky improves the frame rate.
However, each version seems to suffer the most when venturing into cities with several NPCs. The good news, at least for PC, is that the developer is aware of issues, believing them to be linked to high CPU demand from NPCs.
A representative told IGN, “A large amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and dynamically calculates the impact of their physical presence in various environments. In certain situations where numerous characters appear simultaneously, the CPU usage can be very high and may affect the frame rate.
“We are aware that in such situations, settings that reduce GPU load may currently have a limited effect; however, we are looking into ways to improve performance in the future.” How long that may take remains to be seen – while it’s a priority for the team going into launch, these aren’t issues that can be fixed with the flick of a switch.
As such, players are looking to take matters into their own hands, with plans to kill NPCs for the sake of boosted frame rates. Some NPCs are essential to the game, but since all of them can die, there are discussions on who qualifies as inconsequential in the long run. Some suggest killing quest-related NPCs after finishing their tasks.
There are several things to take away from this (not the least of which are some of the insane lengths players are willing to go to for more frames).
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is doing things that very few open-world games are even attempting with its level of emergent gameplay and interactions. The attention to detail, effects, particles and physics are impressive, to say nothing about the fluid combat or the grand sense of adventure.
However, plenty of arguments can be made about optimization, from what’s necessary for a title like this to what the RE Engine can deliver. Remember that the above performance results are with hardware way higher than what the developer recommends for 4K/30 FPS – specifically a Core i7-10700 or Ryzen 5 3600X, 16 GB RAM, and an RTX 2080 or Radeon RX.
Even without considering the wide range in hardware for PC and the sheer amount of settings, you’re still paying $70 for a title that can’t consistently hit 60 FPS on Max settings with top-tier hardware and DLSS enabled. There are already concerns that upscaling solutions like DLSS and FSR are becoming mandatory for some big-name titles, and this certainly doesn’t help.
It’s also making some people consider whether future large-scale open-world titles – like one Grand Theft Auto 6 – will even be capable of frame rates higher than 30 FPS on PS5 and Xbox Series X. That’s a whole other story, of course, especially since we’ve yet to see gameplay or even anything about its resolution and tech.
Still, these are valid concerns since we’re near what many consider the mid-way point of this console generation (especially with the PS5 Pro rumored to arrive by this Holiday season). If top-tier PCs struggle to deliver reliable performance for some titles, even with so much investment, you wonder how these rumored mid-gen refreshes will fare. As always, time will tell, especially about the optimization of console releases compared to their PC counterparts.
Each developer and their pipelines are different – look at Starfield sticking to 30 FPS on Xbox Series X/S while still loading between areas, requiring FSR 2 to output at 4K and 1440p. Compare that to Dragon’s Dogma 2 offering a seamless open-world experience with no loading screens, though it’s unknown whether it uses an upsampling solution on consoles. Interestingly, Starfield also sometimes suffered from frame rate drops in cities like New Atlantis and Akila. The more things change and whatnot.
None of this changes the fact that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a highly-rated game and one that fans and newcomers will likely have dozens of hours of enjoyment. It would be nice if such a long-awaited release didn’t have a massive asterisk and several terms and conditions attached.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
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