Highlights

  • Dragon's Dogma 2 and Skyrim have limited map icons, promoting player exploration over hand-holding in both games.
  • Unlike Skyrim, Dragon's Dogma 2 restricts fast travel to specific locations, encouraging players to discover new areas on foot.
  • Dragon's Dogma 2's open-world map may feel larger due to limited fast travel, but it prioritizes self-imposed discovery and has less clutter.

Since its debut in 2011, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim's map has been a standard for the open-world genre of video games. Despite now being over twelve years old, it still functions as a great example of what an open world should be, and many developers are not ashamed to admit that their influences date back to the days of Skyrim​​​​​​. Each year, more and more open-world games are released that resemble Skyrim in terms of size, layout, and design, further cementing Bethesda's pride and joy as a great example of what works in an open-world game and what doesn't. Capcom's Dragon's Dogma 2 is one of the more recent games to adopt an open-world approach similar to Skyrim's, though the two of them are still different in their own ways.

Dragon's Dogma 2 has become one of 2024's most successful games, despite some controversy involving its microtransactions. Additionally, Dragon's Dogma 2's open world has been criticized on account of its restrictive fast-travel system. Nevertheless, it still holds up as one of the better open worlds to date, as the industry continues to get bogged down by open-world games that generally believe bigger and more is almost always better. It accomplishes this by following in Skyrim's footsteps and providing players with an open world fueled by self-imposed exploration and discovery, rather than map icons.

Dragon's Dogma 2 logo in front of open world screenshot
Related
Dragon's Dogma 2 Proves Its Next Entry Has One Less Feature to Worry About

Dragon's Dogma 2 sets one standard for the next installment, so now a sequel can focus on improving what the second game missed instead.

How Dragon's Dogma 2's Open-World Map Compares to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim

Like Skyrim's, Dragon's Dogma 2's Map Has Limited Icons

The open-world maps of Dragon's Dogma 2 and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim are both alike in that they have limited icons. Unlike many other open-world maps, which show icons for every activity and collectible in the game, Dragon's Dogma 2 and Skyrim only show icons for locations players have either discovered or visited previously. Still, Dragon's Dogma 2's open-world map arguably encourages exploration a bit more than Skyrim's with its limited fast-travel and fewer map icons.

In Skyrim, players can see nearby locations they have yet to visit via the game's compass. The compass will show these locations as dark icons, which will become white upon visiting them. However, in Dragon's Dogma 2, map icons for locations will not appear in the game until players visit them. In other words, there is no compass, and players can only discover optional locations such as caves and small villages by encountering them first. This encourages players to explore the world on their own, rather than having their hands held throughout their journey.

Unlike in Skyrim, Players Can Only Fast-Travel to Specific Locations in Dragon's Dogma 2

One of Dragon's Dogma 2's most divisive features is its fast-travel system, and this is largely due to some fans feeling that the game's open world doesn't justify extended walks. Even so, walking from location to location in Dragon's Dogma 2 can be a rewarding venture, as it's very easy to find areas that have yet to be explored that wouldn't be found fast-traveling. In Skyrim, players can fast-travel to any location they have visited previously, so long as enemies are not nearby. On the other hand, in Dragon's Dogma 2, players can only fast-travel to Portcrystals, which are very limited in number and also require the use of an extremely rare resource called Ferrystones.

It's currently unclear how Dragon's Dogma 2's open-world map size compares to Skyrim's, as an official size has not been released for Dragon's Dogma 2 and many fans are still divided on the size of Skyrim. That being said, Dragon's Dogma 2's map can certainly feel larger at times, simply due to the restrictions placed on fast travel and the amount of time it takes to get from one location to the next. As far as everything else goes, Dragon's Dogma 2 seems to have the upper hand, as it encourages self-imposed discovery more than Skyrim's and has less clutter.