Steam Players Are Fuming at Dragon’s Dogma 2 Over MTX, Denuvo, & Performance Issues

Review bombing is becoming more and more common these days for AAA titles, and whether that’s justified or not is a topic for another time. For now, the latest victim of such a display of collective community fury is none other than the newly released Dragon’s Dogma 2 on Steam. Despite being barely out for more than a day, it now holds a painful Mostly Negative (36%) review metric on Steam.

MTX Seems to Be the Biggest Culprit

As for how and why one of the biggest (and even critically-liked) games of 2024 is getting such a poor reception from its players, it would seem that the microtransactions play a huge part.

One of the most awarded and helpful negative reviews on Dragon’s Dogma 2‘s Steam page cites a microtransaction charge of nearly $2 (USD) to edit your character’s appearance. There’s also no offline workaround for this microtransaction because the character data is stored in Capcom’s servers.

What disgruntled players coined “nickel-and-diming the loyal fans” has become one of the slogans for this negative reception. However, some players were quick to point out that there are character change tokens or opportunities available later on in the game which are obtainable without spending real money.

On the other hand, most negative player reviews still stood by their stance; microtransactions for a character appearance edit have left a bitter taste and a dent in their experience.

Other Concerns Cite Denuvo & Performance Issues

It’s also no secret that Dragon’s Dogma 2 has some rather glaring performance issues at the moment. Some sites have even tested the game on top-end PC hardware with worrying results. Consoles don’t seem to fare better.

It’s not clear yet what’s causing these performance issues, but Capcom is doing something about it, thankfully.

Still, a portion of angry Dragon’s Dogma 2 players who have also left negative reviews regarding performance have also lambasted Denuvo, one of the gaming industry’s most effective anti-tamper and anti-piracy software.

In the past, some members of the PC gaming community have consistently pointed fingers at Denuvo for presumably crippling the performance of their gaming PCs, with or without factual merit. Denuvo even had to step in and refute these claims to reassure everyone that their anti-tamper software doesn’t impact performance.

Regardless, Dragon’s Dogma 2 for Steam and on PC is at a rough spot, with more than 3,000 negative reviews at the time of writing (as opposed to 1,900 positive reviews). For all we know, the initial community verdict might still change once the dust has settled.