Dragon’s Dogma II
Many RPGs flatter the player with power fantasies and fated hero stories that make them an unstoppable force at the center of the universe. Dragon’s Dogma II wasn’t afraid to instead repeatedly knock you on your ass and make you adapt to everything from limited inventory systems to entire plagues. Its high-friction open world is risky but rewarding, full of unique emergent stories that belong solely to the person who experienced them. As Cole Kronman wrote in our review, “Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a game unburdened by any influence save that of its own predecessor; it is, on every level, a supremely confident melding of ideas; it contains at least a little bit of everything I’ve ever loved about video games.” — Ethan Gach
