Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is what I hoped it'd be coming from the original — but after an hour, I still need to see more

I played an hour of the new Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen expansion and walked away impressed by its gameplay loop and improved performance (on PlayStation 5 ), and instantly saw what Capcom is aiming for.

In Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen , players must journey through Norgan, an abandoned region in the north, and join forces with a mysterious new character to uncover the secrets of an undying Fallen Dragon.

In that process, you must find and appraise gear, skills, and weapons known as 'spoils' or 'relics' obtained through exploration and by defeating new, formidable foes to stand a chance in the unforgiving region.

If this sounds a lot like the mechanics of Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen , you're on to something because the appraisal system is effectively identical to Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen 's purification of cursed items, which provided some of the most powerful gear available in the game.

That same concept is applied in Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen 's Norgan region, but with a bigger explorable map instead of a dungeon-only layout and presumably even more spoils to be found.

Better than its predecessor? It's only natural to compare Capcom's two Dragon's Dogma expansions, considering the similarities.

However, after my time with its latest offering, it's hard (and frankly too soon) to conclude which holds the best experience.

Fortunately, some of the pain points from the base game experience in Dragon's Dogma 2 have been addressed, as the major patch (arriving at the end of August) was included in the hour preview I played.

Finally, there's enough time to explore and loot areas without being bombarded by enemies every minute — enemy encounters are still frequent, but during my journey to the first major boss, it felt good not to have hordes of goblins constantly spoiling the fun.

Performance is also significantly improved on the PS5.

Bear in mind, I didn't have access to any frame rate overlay and couldn't visit the base game's regions (and I originally played the base game on PC), but it definitely felt like a constant 60fps, even in the most intense battles.

I didn't have plenty of time to explore many of Norgan's points of interest, but from acquiring a pet dire wolf, stumbling upon a frost-breathing giant, and finding level 3 skill spoils for the new Trickster and Magick Archer vocations, it's clear that Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen is the bigger expansion.

For example, Magick Archer now has an enhanced version of Arctic Bolt that becomes available by appraising one of the skill spoils, known as Glacial Bolt.

This works wonders against bosses, with increased damage and the ability to freeze them in place for pawns to rally and attack.