Critically acclaimed Dragon's Dogma 2 scores 'mostly negative' on Steam after players trash it for microtransactions

Dragon's Dogma 2 hits PC and consoles today, but despite high praise from critics when reviews arrived earlier this week, players on Steam have begun bombarding Capcom's high fantasy RPG after some surprising and confusing microtransactions popped up. . These elements were not present in the game's press build, and players are so excited about them that the game currently sits on a thick red Steam rating of “Mostly Negative” based on over 11,000 reviews and counting.

Based on the game's Steam page, there are 21 downloadable items available for Dragon's Dogma 2 at the moment, ranging in cost from 89p to £4.45 in the UK. These include various items such as Wakestones, which can bring you back from the dead, Rif Crystals, which you can spend to hire additional pawns to join your party, and the Port Crystal, which (only in conjunction with the Ferrystone, an item you cannot pay real money for) can be used. For quick travel, temporary prison key, camping kit, etc. You can also pay £1.70 for a character editor called Art Of Metamorphosis, which certainly doesn't look great when viewed out of context.

Capcom has since confirmed in a message Steam players said that many DLC items “can be obtained in-game or as paid DLC items,” including the aforementioned character editor. They also list Wakestones, Rift Crystals, Port Crystal, gaol key, and more as items you can also get in-game, without handing over any real-world money.

I can see why players are upset about this. The existence of microtransactions was poorly advertised before the game even came out, and given the amount of backlash that occurred when Capcom announced its £60/$70 base price, it's understandable why the idea of ​​potentially having to pay more for all of this would come up . Player reserves.

Admittedly, most of the “mostly negative” Steam reviews seem to be reacting to the fact that they exist at all, without considering whether or not they're actually important to your progress in the game (to be clear, they're not).

However, a more legitimate concern mentioned in other Steam reviews is the game's PC performance issues, which hardware editor James has already reported extensively. “Dragon's Dogma 2 requires some serious hardware to maintain consistently smooth performance,” he wrote earlier this week, and he's not even thinking about playing it on the Steam Deck yet.

In the same letter to players, Capcom acknowledged Dragon's Dogma 2's performance issues, saying it “deeply apologizes for any inconvenience.” They are “investigating/fixing critical issues such as crashes and freezes”, and looking for ways to improve frame rate issues in the game:

“A significant amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and the impact of their physical presence in different areas is calculated. In certain situations where many characters appear at once, 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 have limited impact currently; however, we are looking at ways to improve performance in the future.”