Highlights

  • Dragon's Dogma 2 offers immersive gameplay with real-time action and party-building via the pawn system.
  • Live-action cooking scenes add ambiance to the game, enhancing breaks at camp without overwhelming the player.
  • Capcom strikes a balanced approach with the use of live-action scenes in Dragon's Dogma 2, focusing on cooking to maintain immersion.

Dragon's Dogma 2 does a lot to stand out from other fantasy RPGs, creating an immersive world for players to explore and mechanics that can keep players on their toes with unexpected scenarios. The pawn system of Dragon's Dogma 2 creates a sense of real party-building as pawns act independently of the player and the randomness of monster attacks during the party's journey helps with the game's emergent gameplay. However, one of the most immersive details within Dragon's Dogma 2 is the use of real footage of food during cooking segments, but this detail only works because it is used sparingly.

Capcom games are somewhat famous for their inclusion of delicious-looking in-game food, with the Monster Hunter games being the most notable series to pay special attention to this detail. As such, it's not surprising to see Capcom put an effort into bringing Dragon's Dogma 2's food to life with footage of real meat being grilled during cooking scenes. However, as fun as this gimmick is in Dragon's Dogma 2, Capcom did a good job of limiting it to just the cooking segments so as not to spoil the novelty of having too many live-action scenes within the game.

Dragon's Dogma 2 Rook being swallowed by the Brine
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Dragon's Dogma 2's Live-Action Cooking Doesn't Need to Spread to Other Parts of the Game

Cooking is a fairly straightforward but hugely helpful part of Dragon's Dogma 2 that can often make or break combat, meaning it's a great idea for players to cook a meal when they have the chance since one never knows when they will be attacked by a Griffin while on their journey. To cook in Dragon's Dogma 2, players simply need to rest at a campsite using a camping kit and select the option to cook while standing by the fire. Cooking ingredients like Beast-Steak and Scrag of Beast give the Arisen and their pawns stat buffs that go into effect when they awaken after resting at the camp.

The cutscene that plays while cooking differs slightly depending on which type of meat is being cooked, but both display real scenes of meat sizzling on the grill. While Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't necessarily what one would call a "cozy" game, there is something special about seeing the mouth-watering food cooking while taking a breather at camp. However, this special moment of respite would be much less impactful if the use of live-action cinematics was more common in the game, showing how Capcom successfully takes a balanced approach to their use of live-action in Dragon's Dogma 2.

How Dragon's Dogma 2 Strikes the Right Balance with its Use of Live-Action

dragon's dogma 2 food 1

While Dragon's Dogma 2 effectively uses live-action cooking scenes to add ambiance to breaks at camp, there are plenty of other instances where the game could have used live-action cutscenes but didn't. Other moments of rest such as passing the time at a tavern or skipping the traveling part of an oxcart journey in Dragon's Dogma 2 could have used live-action for their transitional cutscenes. However, Capcom makes the wise choice to limit the use of live-action scenes in Dragon's Dogma 2 so as not to wear out their novelty.

The decision to use live-action cinematics in a modern AAA game is a risky one to be sure, as most often live-action segments serve purely as a gimmick. However, by limiting these scenes to cooking while at camp, Dragon's Dogma 2 doesn't overwhelm the player with tonal or stylistic shifts and instead adds to the ambiance of the game. It was also a good move to choose a simple task like Dragon's Dogma 2's cooking for these live-action scenes as the detailed shots of the meat are far less immersion-breaking than other scenes could have been, given how easy it would be for live-action to clash with the game's art style.