In a new developer interview uploaded by IGN, Dragon’s Dogma 2 game director Hideaki Itsuno and lead developer Kento Kinoshita talked about how the concept of Pawns was created, and how it is being evolved since they first showed up in the original Dragon’s Dogma.
Right off the bat, Itsuno talks about one of the most defining features of Dragon’s Dogma‘s Pawns—how talkative they tend to be. While some players found the trait to be endearing, many others found it to be quite annoying. Itsuno talks about the studio doing as much as it could to keep the Pawns in Dragon’s Dogma 2 from repeating lines.
“We’ve done whatever we can to keep Pawns from repeating the same lines multiple times,” said Itsuno in the interview.
He goes on to talk about the role that Pawns, alongside other NPCs play in Dragon’s Dogma 2.
“We wanted Pawns to feel like a friend who’s playing the game is sitting there next to you and giving you advice,” he says. “Like, ‘Hey, let’s go this way!’, or ‘In that case, this is the way to do it’. That sort of guidance. It’s like having a friend there guiding you in an enjoyable way.”
Lead developer Kento Kinoshita then talks about the personalities of Pawns. The original Dragon’s Dogma had a number of personalities for its different Pawns, and it looks like Dragon’s Dogma 2 will continue that tradition. Each personality in Dragon’s Dogma 2 will have its own voice actor and character traits, which also indicate the type of role they will play as part of your group.
“If you want to think of it in terms of individuality, I think we’ve very consciously tried to expand the number of ways in which Pawns are individuals,” says Kinoshita. “There’s personality, as we just mentioned, while in terms of knowledge, they might have knowledge of certain enemies.”
Leading up to the game’s March release, Capcom has been ramping up its marketing efforts for Dragon’s Dogma 2. Earlier this week, we got a comprehensive look at its character creator, while some of the Vocations were shown off in previous showings.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S on March 22.
