- Director Hideaki Itsuno has delved into the exploration and traversal of Dragon’s Dogma 2 recently.
- The game won’t be overly reliant on fast travel since the element of traveling will offer its own fun in the game.
- He believes only boring games need to rely on fast travel primarily.
The RPG genre went through various successful releases last year, with Baldur’s Gate 3 taking home Game of the Year, Starfield amassing millions of players, and Cyberpunk 2077 going through a historic resurgence. 2024 is also off to a strong start.
Two major releases, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and Dragon’s Dogma 2, are right around the corner. The latter has been progressing well since 2023, with the developer recently explaining a major focus on travel and exploration ahead of launch.
Why it matters: Players yearn for more freedom and meaningful open worlds in RPGs, allowing them to explore these mystical worlds and universes.
In an interview with IGN, the director of Dragon’s Dogma 2, Hideaki Itsuno, expressed his take on traversal and getting from point A to point B in a game. He explained that this world was created to produce memorable random encounters.
Each part of the map has something that players can stumble upon, including new NPCs and quests. Hideaki Itsuno also addressed the growing influence of fast travel.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 will not allow players to instantly travel to any point on the map at all times, allocating resources to this task for more strategic use of fast travel. The director said:
“Travel is boring? That’s not true. It’s only an issue because your game is boring.”
Therefore, Hideaki Itsuno believes games relying on fast travel usually end up doing so because they are dull, discouraging players from exploring at their own pace.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 hopes to avoid this problem, placing plenty of secrets throughout its open world for players to find and enemies to beat. To make this exploration even more meaningful, the game has eliminated loading screens for minimal interruptions.
To an extent, We find Hideaki Itsuno’s words to hold some truth. We can relate to Spider-Man as an example of a game where fast travel was never used because the traversal was so satisfying.
However, the option to instantly teleport between the map was still a nice bonus when hunting for collectibles or finishing up side-quests.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 arrives on 22 March for all major platforms. The game marks Hideaki Itsuno’s first major release after Devil May Cry 5, with the developer returning to this RPG franchise over a decade after its debut.
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[News Reporter]
Bawal is an MBBS student by day and a gaming journalist by night. He has been gaming since childhood, growing fond of the creativity and innovation of the industry. His career as a gaming journalist started one year ago, and his journey has allowed him to write reviews, previews, and features for various sites. Bawal has also been cited in reputed websites such as Screenrant, PCGamesN, WCCFTech, GamesRadar, and more.
