Dragon’s Dogma 2 is one of the boldest games I’ve played in recent memory. It’s relentless in how it makes the player work for everything — from its cumbersome fast travel system to its refusal to give simple directions during quests, just to name a few. And now for the cherry on top, there’s also an infection that can cause your pawn to kill virtually every NPC in a major city, thus bricking side quest progression.
They call it Dragonsplague! It’s the latest hotness making its rounds on Twitter and Reddit. Basically, as you play through Dragon’s Dogma 2, there’s a chance that your pawn (or a pawn you hire from the Rift) could get infected with something called Dragonsplague. When this happens, they’ll stop obeying the player’s orders, and if you leave it untreated for long enough, you get a cutscene showing them transforming into a drake and killing a whole bunch of NPCs in the city.
After the cutscene ends, all you can do is run around Vernworth solemnly, looking at the devastating trail of destruction your pawn left behind. The blacksmith’s dead, the armorer’s dead, even the nice beggar’s dead. If this happens at an inopportune moment in the game, you’ll basically get locked out of progressing through certain side quests, and that could drastically affect how the rest of your playthrough goes.
Understandably, players are mad about this. After all, no one likes sleeping at an inn, only to wake up to the horrific sight of dead NPCs strewn everywhere.
However, I’m here to be a little contrarian and tell you that if you let your pawns get to that stage of killing everyone in town, then that’s on you. Because Dragon’s Dogma 2 does a fantastic job of showing you all the warning signs.
Once you get to Vernworth for the first time, your pawns will quickly start chatting about a certain disease they’ve heard about. You’ve probably heard this line of dialogue multiple times too, because pawns just won’t shut up in Dragon’s Dogma 2. They chatter about the possibility of getting infected while traveling beyond the Rift, and infected pawns will also stop obeying the Arisen’s orders.
That, right there, should be your first major clue. Issuing commands to your pawns is a crucial part of combat, as it helps you shift between offensive and defensive maneuvers as necessary. If you give an order and a pawn shouts at you not to tell them what to do, well, then that’s a pretty damn clear sign there’s something wrong with that pawn. And, again, because pawns can’t shut up in this game, they’ll also comment on that particular pawn’s behavior.
The thing to understand about Dragon’s Dogma‘s pawns is that these are inherently helpful beings. They’re helpful to a fault; they’ll see a ladder you can climb and they’ll never shut up about it. So when a pawn starts to show even the slightest hint of rebellion, it should be immediately obvious to the player that something’s wrong.
Not only that, there are physical signs to look out for as well. Infected pawns will have glowing red eyes, and their idle animations change to show them holding their heads in pain. These signs pop up well before they even get close to going full rampage mode, which means that theoretically, players should have plenty of time to nip things in the bud before then.
I’ll be the first to admit that I think the “cure” to Dragonsplague could’ve been handled a bit more elegantly. If your main pawn gets infected, the only way to cure it is by killing the pawn — by drowning them or throwing them off a cliff, take your pick — and then reviving them at the nearest Rift Stone. I wish there was some in-game item or quest that could help getting rid of Dragonsplague to make the mechanic feel more fleshed out, but hey, I guess you can’t always get everything you want.
Capcom took a lot of risks with Dragon’s Dogma 2, and the Dragonsplague infection might very well be the game’s most unique and interesting mechanic so far. It’s horrifying in a way that you don’t expect: by taking the one group of people whose sole purpose in life is to help the Arisen with their quest, and turning them into destructive monsters, Dragonsplague becomes the biggest plot twist you’ll encounter in Dragon’s Dogma 2. It’s also very fitting with the game’s main conceit, in that it’s possible for the pawns to lose control and lose sight of who they’re actually supposed to be loyal to.
It’s one of Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s best surprises and it’s refreshing to play a game that’s so unafraid of throwing hard curveballs at the players and making them live with the consequences of their actions. This is a game that demands your full attention and that you meet it at its level, and because it’s so well-designed, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is able to actually get away with being so brazen.
If, after all that, you’re still unable to recognize that one of your pawns has been infected, Dragon’s Dogma 2 dishes out the ultimate punishment. After your pawn goes on a rampage, you get one more pop-up onscreen, where the game tells you that if only you’d paid more attention to your pawns, maybe you could’ve avoided this whole disaster… It’s a tough pill to swallow, especially when it feels like the game’s just rubbing it in your face at this point, with no way to revert back to an older save if you haven’t been making backups.
But hey, lest we forget, those helpless pawns were counting on you, Arisen.
Published: Mar 26, 2024 02:00 pm