Dragon's Dogma 2 has a very intriguing new system, which oddly brings back memories of Metal Gear Solid 5.
Yesterday, alongside announcing the Dragon's Dogma 2 release date of March 22, 2024, Capcom also unveiled a new language barrier system for the RPG sequel. As recapped by former Nintendo host Kit Ellis just below, the protagonist Arisen doesn't understand languages like Elven, but if they have an Elf as a Pawn in their party, the minion will automatically translate for them.
I absolutely love this little detail from the Dragon’s Dogma 2 Showcase pic.twitter.com/vcyTFQgakrNovember 29, 2023
It's an incredible little detail that's honestly been missing from fantasy RPGs and games in general for way too long (as former Vice Games head Austin Walker points out in the comments). When you've got a world of multiple cultures and peoples, why wouldn't they all have their own languages and distinct methods of communication? It just makes perfect sense.
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Slightly weirdly, this is giving Metal Gear Solid 5 vibes. Not that the 2015 game is the only other game to ever pull this language system trick, but Metal Gear Solid 5 had soldiers out in the field with all sorts of languages, including Russian, Afrikaans, and many more.
If you came across two Russian soldiers talking, for example, you wouldn't be able to understand them immediately because the protagonist Venom Snake doesn't speak Russian. So you needed to kidnap a Russian soldier and add them to your army, and they'd then translate Russian for you on the fly whenever you overheard a conversation between enemies or took another Russian soldier hostage.
Both are great examples of languages being employed by interactive games. If you're keen on this sort of thing, I'd highly recommend giving Chants of Senaar a spin - it's a game themed around deciphering a foreign tongue and translating symbols based on interpreting actions to solve puzzles. It's a really, really clever game.
Elsewhere for Capcom's sequel, it looks like Dragon's Dogma 2 will be the developer's first $70 game. This price oddly isn't translating to other regions around the world though, as the UK is having its PS5 version priced at the lower cost of £60.
You can read up on our Dragon's Dogma 2 preview for what we made of the sequel when we played it for ourselves recently.
