Expansions in RPGs are always the worst because, before starting them, there is always this question of when and where you can encounter them. Sometimes they start popping up the second the tutorial is done; other times you have a solid 20 hours until you encounter them, which I imagine can be good or bad depending on how much you have already played the game previously. In the case of Dragon’s Dogma II: Dark Arisen, it’s even odder. This is because Captain Brant offers the player most of their quests from the start of the game and has them available as soon as you reach him.
You can accept the quests and go on your way, but the game does warn about some level capping involved. The main questline that will send you to a new region requires the player to be around level 40. Not a hard requirement, as I started this at 36, though enemies in the region will beat you down more than you care to admit. If you survive this, though, you will rocket up in level faster than the main game allows. The second mission requires you to be level 20. This allows you to beat that task afterwards; you unlock the bulk of this new content, which might require you to reach level 40 to actually complete, as an item that is late-game is required. There are an annoying number of outside elements you need to factor in to get going.
Once you do hit level forty, you can head to the new land, Norgan. Located on the map far more north than you had previously explored, it finally adds some snow and cold to the game. Up to this point it was pretty bright and cheerful, considering everything everywhere all the time wants to murder the hell out of you. Now we get to explore a snow-capped region and get some pretty interesting divergences from typical play to mix it up. This is mostly coming in the form of literal whiteout blizzards that can freeze you and diminish your health bar, not to mention make it harder to see.
If you compare it to the rest of the map, you are likely to think that Norgan is this tiny little diversion, but the developers at Capcom deserve a massive amount of credit for managing to fit such a massive amount into this small space. Or, more to the point, utilizing it far better than the base game does. Here, even if you are walking between point A and B, it’s never some lumbering journey, which is a great change of pace.
Because of the smaller structure of this world, each area also feels like it has a deeper amount of personality. Exploring one area to the next offers something new and concise. We also get some new ways to experience it through elements like grappling hooks and a literal direwolf that can run around with your party of pawns, finding items that are hidden. A lot of these elements are found through doing the sub-stories in the areas. While the sub-stories act very similarly to those of the main game, wandering through the main village only to be stopped by people in need of help, they remain a highlight, as these are where you get the personality of the region and some added features.
My biggest complaint about these features isn’t even that they are bad, but that they are limited to this area. Maybe if this expansion had been released a year ago, travel between the new area and the main hub would have been more limited, but you get an eternal ferrystone now for travel, so you can jump between them at any time. Elements like the grappling hook require you to have one of the items, throw it at a marked totem, then climb up that. I kept thinking every time I did this, how great it would be if it simply worked on high ledges, how open that could make the traversal across the whole game. Sadly, that was not to be the case.
No, the bigger issue is that, in terms of conflict, the northern realm has nothing new to offer players. If you have spent 20, or 40, or hell, even 100 hours into the experience, there is nothing here that will intrinsically turn you away. I spent at least 25 hours beating this DLC, so there is a lot here. Of course, part of this was the sheer EXP spike enemies in the area gave you, allowing me to go from level 40 to 80 in that period when the main map had started to become more grindy. While this costs money, it undeniably adds some of the best farming that makes the rest of the game easy.
It just doesn’t feel like it adds anything deeper than that. Maybe it doesn’t need to, but it’s very noticeable, which is the shame. Much of the story concerns searching out a second Arisen in this new land, which leads back into the typical quest structure of talking to somebody, getting direction, and wandering there. You do get a fun battle with a dragon on, but you will see the rhythm form in a near-identical package to the main title. At one point, you even have to solve Sphinx riddles to progress in a near-identical manner to the secret character found in the main world. I remember the character being so popular in memes and photos from the game that it’s no wonder they chose to use the idea in a more mainline version, but I have seen it before.
Then you get to the enemies that, at least, feel heavier with their level scale but still feel distinctly familiar. The bandits are bulkier but still fight similarly to the bandits before. Bugaboos are an enemy type that feel like the goblins, just faster. And then you have harpies and lizards that feel identical to their counterparts, just tougher. And throughout this area, that’s what you can expect. I will admit more versatility to them, like archers that can slip around the battlefield and bounce off you with ease.
Even the larger enemies weirdly feel like reskins more than adding something new to the whole experience. One, covered in fur and tusks, is literally just the troll with a new ice breath attack that freezes you. Right down to the tree trunk, it occasionally wields. The same goes for almost everything, as even the dragons are just sort of dragons with more frost attacks. Something added to this new area, something akin to the big hunt in a Monster Hunter DLC, would have been the most welcome feature, though it doesn’t drag the experience down.
One of the best new features is the relics, which you find on almost any enemy you slay. These act as messed-up items you can get appraised and then equip. They can be anything, but they are mostly gear. My first drop jumped my stats by like 400 attack points and then about 200 defense; it really is crazy. Again, this adds much more to the grind of the game, allowing you to buff yourself a lot earlier and much better than even some endgame elements. If you don’t get better gear, they still have sell prices, so there is no limit to how you can build your wealth from this.
This leads into the second element of Dragon’s Dogma II: Dark Arisen, which doesn’t require you to leave the main map. The lower-level mission allows the player to unlock a series of dungeons that serve as a roguelike series of challenges to complete for high-tier loot. You can start them earlier, but the final room, which is what holds the reward in them, is not unlocked until much later, so you can farm these areas but not reap the reward until then.
How these work is you move between rooms that are locked, then fight a series of enemies, sometimes big ones and other times groups of smaller ones, then keep progressing. There are about 12 in total from what I have seen, and the best part is they respawn every few days, making them a never-ending source of fun combat and great looting. They also scale slightly above the area you find them in, again making this expansion a never-ending source of grinding out your level more than anything else.
Verdict
Dragon’s Dogma II: Dark Arisen is more of the same, but that isn’t really a bad thing in this case. If you were getting bored by everything else on offer, you can explore a brand new area and unravel a new mystery that adds at least 20 hours to the game. The new area adds a welcome change to the locale, and the developers did an impressive job filling it with elements that make it feel unique. I also loved how it uses this new terrain, filled with far less dead space than the main game. On top of that, you get a new series of challenges that are constantly respawning, making for easy-to-access battles that never fail to thrill. If you enjoy the main game, you will enjoy this, of this much I am certain.
Remember to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Bluesky to keep up to date on everything we have going on!
Reviewed for PlayStation 5, also available on Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC
*A key was provided by Capcom for the purposes of this review
Developer/Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: October 9, 2026
Pros
+New area is small but very well utilized, feeling like there is less dead space.
+Environmental effects like whiteouts are welcome additions to this area
+Great EXP farming across all its elements, along with a lot of gear to acquire.
+The dungeons added to the main map are very fun, and repayable.
Cons
-Same issues the main story has persist here.
-Outside of the snowcapped location, the DLC adds very little that you haven't seen.
-I wish new content like the grappling hook had broader applications.
-
Dragon's Dogma II: Dark Arisen
