Highlights

  • Swimming mechanics in gaming can be divisive due to technical challenges and design choices by developers.
  • Dragon's Dogma 2 introduces the Brine to avoid implementing swimming mechanics.
  • The Brine in Dragon's Dogma 2 also has a surprisingly deep place in the franchise's lore.

Swimming is one of gaming's most divisive mechanics, and its inclusion or lack thereof can be due to several reasons. In gaming's earliest days, water often made platforming more challenging by essentially being an out-of-bounds, off-limits area that players weren't meant to explore. Most of the time, this wasn't an intentional design choice by developers to increase a game's difficulty and instead reflected the technical challenge of implementing realistic and reliable swimming mechanics into a game. Not only do developers need to ensure characters move realistically while in the water, but they also have to account for the water physics in a game, which can sometimes require extra time and resources. Today, swimming mechanics are still one of the touchiest features in gaming, but many games pride themselves on their realistic swimming. Dragon's Dogma 2, on the other hand, simply ignores the feature altogether, but it does so in the best way.

The Brine is an enemy of sorts that was first introduced in Dragon's Dogma and has once again found its home in Dragon's Dogma 2. While it does have a credible amount of lore to back up its presence in the world of Dragon's Dogma, it could be argued that the Brine is nothing more than a way for each game to avoid including swimming mechanics of any kind. Nevertheless, it is much better than simply making Dragon's Dogma 2's water an invisible, impassable wall with absolutely no connection to its narrative.

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Dragon's Dogma 2's Brine Is the Best Way to Explain Absent Swimming Mechanics

The Brine has been around since Dragon's Dogma and Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen and has primarily kept players out of the water. That being said, its place in Dragon's Dogma lore all but gives it reason to exist. The Brine began as tiny, mist-like creatures but have grown long, wriggling red tentacles in Dragon's Dogma 2. They make their home in the rivers and oceans of the world and will possess anyone who steps too far into deep water. The Arisen may be swallowed but is returned to the surface immediately after, whereas Pawns are returned to the Rift, and people and monsters are killed.

The Brine appears to have been taken to new heights this time, as Dragon's Dogma 2 provides even more lore about the threat that seems to give it a central role in the cycle. From what is revealed through various NPCs in Dragon's Dogma 2, the Brine seems to be so connected to the Great Will that they may very well be the same thing. Specifically, Dragon's Dogma 2's Rivage Elder states that Gigantus, the stone giant that players are tasked with defeating late in the game, is a servant of the Brine sent to keep the Dragon in check. If this is Capcom's attempt to justify the Brine's presence in Dragon's Dogma's universe even further, it is a masterful one.

Dragon's Dogma 2's Brine Hasn't Avoided Controversy

Regardless of how justified its presence in Dragon's Dogma 2 may be, the Brine hasn't been able to avoid controversy. Apart from some viewing the Brine as an excuse to prevent players from swimming, it has also been known to make some potentially epic battles rather anticlimactic. For example, players might be battling a tough enemy near some water, only for it to accidentally stumble into the water at some point and die instantly. While this can result in some of the best and easiest XP in Dragon's Dogma 2, it simultaneously robs players of the quintessential experience by stealing their fights.

As swimming in gaming continues to be a divisive mechanic, it's refreshing when games like Dragon's Dogma 2 have a thorough, reasonable explanation for lacking the feature. Dragon's Dogma 2's world is full of interesting (and quite complex) bits of lore; the dreadful Brine is just one example of them.