Dragon's Dogma 2 is an amazing open-world RPG – we've said that many times on our site Dragon's Dogma 2 review on PS5. But there's also no getting around how unimproved the title is on a technical level. As emphasized in our review above, the game's frame rate can be an issue. Most of the time, you'll find it hovering between 30 and 45 frames per second, which is… finebut it's definitely not the consistent 60fps you want from an action-packed game.
What's more, the frame rate can be truly Stumble upon locations where there's a lot going on. It's a disappointing case, and the last one Digital Foundry The analysis is largely in agreement.
Let's start with the positives: Dragon's Dogma 2 runs at 4K on PS5, and generally looks great. The report also praises the title's implementation of ray-traced global lighting (RTGI), which allows the game to take advantage of some really cool lighting effects. In short, it could be a great release.
However, with no graphical options available on the PS5 – not even Performance Mode, which we still find confusing – you're at the mercy of the game's uncapped frame rate. Digital Foundry points out that this is it Demanding Title by design. It relies heavily on CPU usage, as enemies and NPCs require a large amount of processing power – especially in densely populated areas, such as cities.
This is a big part of the reason why the game's frame rate takes such a notable hit when you're just walking around the city. On PS5 in particular, the title attempts to alleviate some of the pressure by dramatically reducing the draw distance of NPCs – and the result is some jarring situations where townsfolk can fade into existence mere feet from where your character is standing.
Digital Foundry sums things up well: “Dragon's Dogma 2 is a remarkable graphical achievement, but unfortunately it's let down by some configuration issues on consoles and heavily CPU-bound performance on all platforms.”
Whether that's through adding graphical settings on the PS5 or through better optimization, the bottom line is that Capcom simply must improve the game's performance. It would be a shame if Dragon's Dogma 2 was left in such a state.
