Dragon’s Dogma 2 is finally ditching the paid shortcuts players hated

Dragon’s Dogma 2 was built to make travel awkward, danger inconvenient, and bad decisions memorable. Then players opened the store at launch and saw Capcom selling shortcuts beside a $70 single-player RPG, which made the whole thing feel uglier than it needed to be.

Starting June 25, the Deluxe Edition of Dragon’s Dogma 2 and several paid item packs will no longer be sold, clearing out much of the microtransaction clutter before Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen arrives later this year.

The removed content includes the Deluxe Edition, the New Journey Pack, Rift Crystal bundles, Portcrystals, Wakestones, Art of Metamorphosis, Harpysnare Smoke Beacons, the Makeshift Gaol Key, Ambivalent Rift Incense, and the Heartfelt Pendant. Players who already own any of it will still be able to use it.

Only two paid extras are staying on sale: the Explorer’s Camping Gear and the Music and Sound Collection. The base digital version of Dragon’s Dogma 2 is also getting a permanent price cut, which makes the timing feel less like quiet housekeeping and more like Capcom trying to give the game a cleaner shelf before its next big push.

The change does not erase what happened at launch, but it does remove one of the easiest complaints from the conversation. For a game that has spent two years fighting old first impressions, that matters.

The strange thing about the original controversy is that many of the paid items were not essential. Players could find or earn several of them in the game, and Dragon’s Dogma 2 was not secretly built around forcing everyone into the store.

Selling Portcrystals, Wakestones, Rift Crystals, and character editing items beside a game designed around scarcity made players feel like Capcom was charging for relief from its own friction.

The PC version was already being criticized for performance issues, and Steam players were angry about crashes, frame rates, and the lack of a clean restart option. The microtransactions gave that anger a sharper target.

Capcom has already started changing the game in ways that make the old paid shortcuts feel even harder to defend. A recent title update added the Eternal Ferrystone, giving players a reusable fast-travel option through normal play. It also added more Portcrystals, adjusted travel costs, improved rewards, and made other quality-of-life changes.

That is the version of Dragon’s Dogma 2 players wanted Capcom to support from the beginning. The game can still be strange, stubborn, and inconvenient without making the store feel like a workaround.

Another update is expected before Dark Arisen, with Capcom targeting performance, save options, UI, character behavior, Dragonsplague, enemy stats, and bug fixes. Those are not glamorous changes, but they are the kind that decide whether returning players give the game another chance or remember only the launch mess.

Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen launches on October 9 with a new northern region, dungeon challenges, equipment, skills, enemies, and customization options. It also brings the game to Nintendo Switch 2, while players on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PCs can buy the expansion separately.

The best parts of Dragon’s Dogma 2 were always bigger than the monetization argument: pawns shouting nonsense at the worst possible time, monsters wrecking careful plans, long trips turning into disasters, and fights that felt barely under control.

Removing most microtransactions lets those strengths breathe again. The next test is whether Dark Arisen and the coming updates can make players talk about the adventure instead of the store page.