‘Dwarf Fortress’, a gargantuan-complex-in-depth simulated world, crowned as the most realistic simulated game to ever exist, and even being featured in the ‘Museum of Modern Art’. Dwarf Fortress has a long history of development, primarily developed by only 2 brothers, Tarn and Zach Adams. With the Steam version you get a UI and keybinding overhaul, and instead of text-based ASCII graphics and only 1 song, you get actual graphics and a full OST. This is the definitive way to play Dwarf Fortress as it currently stands - and with mod support, adventure mode, and an ASCII graphics mode coming in the future, at its asking price, not only is it worth buying, it stands as one of the best at what it does - even among its competitors… Most of which were originally inspired by Dwarf Fortress.

To further explain how much depth this game has, I might as well send you its wiki, which resembles almost a pocket introduction to reality, as it describes how our reality works, in detail - but instead of doing that, I thought I’d try do my best to summarize SOME of what this game accomplishes.

Everything in the game is simulated in real time and tracked without the player's influence or direct input - civilizations will rise and fall, and have their own internal conflicts, materials, moods, etc.. You’ll be able to view 100s of years of procedurally generated and simulated civilisations, down to every action someone took throughout their life - in the legends viewer.

Organs, skin, nervous tissue, hair, and distinct animal parts are all simulated, and instead of having a generic HP system, the game will base the demise of each creature on the blood it loses - a blood system which interacts with each individual simulated part of their body. 712 creatures are simulated with distinct features such as shells, hoofs, horns, and unique abilities.

Clusters and stone layer-types are realistically simulated and affect how roughly 81 stone/rock/ore-types spawn. There are 71-72 trees in the game, each with their own unique wood type. Different wood types affect density/weight, and that density/weight affects storage hauling, weapons, and armor. Metals have density, a melting point, and material value, and armours and weapons made with it are impacted by impact yield, impact fracture, impact elasticity, shear yield, shear fracture, shear elasticity. Glass also shares a lot of the same factors as metal, same with leather, and a lot of other materials, where each sub-effect is coded into the game and is dependent on a value/number given to each effect, which changes the quality of most if not all crafts. There are roughly 112 different crops/plants, each needing their own condition - such as light, temperature, biome, above ground, below ground, wet, dry, etc. and can be eaten raw, cooked, or turned into alcohol. Each plot has different levels of fertilization/yield.

You can trade, create military units, look at the thoughts and emotions of all your dwarfs, and specify each individual clothing piece on their body, see each dwarf improve at their trade/craft/profession, and even read books they’ve written.

Dwarf Fortress is also technically 3D, as you can traverse through different 2D layers that create a 3D space - allowing you to travel up and down. This allows you to build massive castles, underground fortresses, trap rooms, path water and lava, and basically do anything you can think of.

I could go on, but I hope this encapsulates what makes this game so great. Currently though, there are some issues.

Issues such as: UI cutting off, blurriness on zoom in, jittery/lagging screen panning, and poor control design which requires a lot of manual remapping to make feel good, taking quite a large sum of your time initially (especially because some settings don’t match their in-game names). While you can put up with a lot of this, and even just use your mouse instead of bothering with using the keyboard for 90% of actions, I do think an overreliance on the mouse makes the game quite click intensive, which doesn’t feel “good”. Overall though, these are minor compared to what you had to put up with on the classic version of this game, which for most people has a ridiculous barrier to entry - more than most games.

Amazing release, hope the best regarding Dwarf Fortress’ future development, and may the next 2 decades of development get us closer to that goal of simulating 100% of reality!

I think in large the vision of Dragon’s Dogma 2 (DD2) was initially confusing to me... Thinking back to Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen (DD:DA), I found myself thinking that the game was just a modern reskin with removed features... And while in some part that is true, I noticed that a lot of my concerns going into it, about things like weapon switching, having 1-less usable ability, not being able to throw items, and the removal of some vocations... Ultimately didn’t really matter. It could be a number of things, like visuals, timings, new abilities, new physics, the ability to stand on top of big monsters, weightiness, or all of those things combined... Whatever it is, combat feels better, and I don’t really miss the awkwardness of switching abilities/weapons and accidentally pressing a shield ability when trying to use a sword ability. Also classes like archer feel a lot more unique, being one of the only classes that can apply things like tarring shot, for example, without having to throw a bottle. Also having a quick menu for lantern, stamina, and healing options circumvents the constant inventory pausing of the first game. The main differences though, and the one that I think has the most impact, is the stamina regeneration/recovery rates, as well as stamina amount/usage. This alone makes combat more engaging, as you’re using more abilities, running around more, and not constantly stuck in an out-of-breath animation, like I was in DD:DA. The simplification of systems, as well as the quality of life changes, while on paper seems mostly redundant or worse, makes the whole experience a lot more enjoyable for me personally.


That’s not to say it’s directly better. DD2 struggles severely with performance, worse than any modern-AAA game I’ve played. CAPCOM’s monetization is egregious, with pre-order bonuses, deluxe editions, as well as a stealth drop of a several pay-to-win micro-transactions. The lower height limit was raised, removing goblin holes, as well as decreasing the extremity of weight/height related features. Certain creatures were removed, as well as certain vocations. There is only one save slot, as well as no way to delete your save in-game. You can lose a ton of progress by accidentally loading back into your last inn-save. Enemy variety quickly becomes stale/tired within the first 10-30 hours, with only some new creatures introduced. Micro-transaction related items feel too rare or are too expensive (more than first game), making me think that it was purposefully done to make more money. Talking to every NPC on the chance that they’ll be of use to you is frustrating, and adds very little to the experience of questing. There is bug where the physics on an upward punch of an ogre/Cyclops can launch you into the stratosphere (similar to Skyrim’s giants, except not intended). Underclothes being removed takes a lot away from transmog potential. Most importantly, Battahl prices are way too high.


By far the biggest improvement is the pawn system. While the core of it is the same, the pawns are a lot smarter this time around. You have several badges of expertise to work towards, with each big enemy felled making your pawn better at handling those situations. Not only that, but pawns will learn from your world and other worlds. So for example, if I found a chest, or a cave, then my pawn will learn that information, and pass it on to anyone that hires them, giving incentives for you to explore as much as possible, not only to find more loot, but also to train your pawn to be more helpful. This works vice versa between players pawns. Also some pawns will know elvish languages, where to find resources, and have other specific use-cases. This makes the pawn system feel more involved this time around, and with more interesting dialogue than the first, and pawn interactions between one-another and you, it feels closer to the vision of creating a single-player game that feels multiplayer.

Another neat part of this system is the gifts, likes, hearts, and recap of their adventures that you get each time you sleep. It makes you feel encouraged to make your pawn the best it can be, whether that be regarding looks, combat, or exploration expertise.


A lot of the intentional slow down of exploration/traversal, with things like air gondolas, oxcarts, stamina, ferrystones, port crystals, adds to the feeling of existing naturally within the world of Dragon’s Dogma. This is further exemplified by night time difficulty/low visibility, lanterns, glowing eyes at night, embers of fireplaces, camping, weight system, trip-preparation (items), limited wakestones (revives), save-overrides (can’t go back to previous manual save), and non-healable health, which creates a level of intentionality to how long you stay out in the wild, as well as how you prepare for that, and how deaths occur. Chuck on several potential ailments, cooking, crafting, physics, and unique creature behaviour and patterns, and you have an engaging ARPG that feels akin to an immersive survival game.

While it’s easy to criticise the vision Itsuno had regarding this, as monetisation puts a stain on it – in practice it feels really good. Think about how ecology, gathering, crafting, preparation, turf war, and all the other little features that the Monster Hunter series implements, and how that benefits the engagement of going out on a hunt, and apply that same logic to an open world with no loading screens. It’s great, and it personally deepens my connection to the world itself.

For some I’d imagine this section sounds anything but good, and if you’re one of those people, then it’s just not the game for you.


Dragon’s Dogma 2 is shy off being the perfect game for me, but what I’m left with feels akin to what I wanted out of the Elder Scrolls series, and in large part, what I tried to mod Skyrim into. It feels weird saying this, as I think that both series are incomparable at face value, but this is largely why I enjoy it so much... It feels like it appeals to my childhood fantasy that I never saw come into fruition – until now.

However, and I want to stress this, the biggest issue right now being performance, overshadows a lot of what this game is trying to accomplish. I can look past a lot of the issues I’ve listed, but this is one that simply cannot be overlooked. Not only do I run 20-40 fps in cities, but the camera doesn’t feel smooth even at 60 fps outside of cities. The optimisation in this game is atrocious, and I have no idea how long it will take to address this, or whether it will be addressed.

I also don’t think this game is for everyone, and if you’re on the fence, I would play Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen to get a feel of what to expect coming into this, as well as wait for a decent sale of at least 20%.

I’m leaving a positive review on the expectation that CAPCOM will fix the performance issues, but until then I advocate against buying into the hype of an unpolished experience. The game isn’t going anywhere.