Critically acclaimed Dragon's Dogma 2 hits "mostly negative" on Steam after players raze it for microtransactions

Dragon's Dogma 2 arrives on PC and consoles today, but despite high critical acclaim when reviews hit earlier this week, players on Steam have begun review-bombing Capcom's high fantasy RPG after the appearance of some sudden and confusing microtransactions. These weren't present in the press build of the game, and players are so up in arms about them that the game is currently sitting on a fat red "Mostly Negative" Steam rating based on over 11,000 reviews and counting.

Judging by the game's Steam page, there are 21 DLC items available for Dragon's Dogma 2 right now, ranging in cost from 89 pence to £4.45 in the UK. These include various items such as Wakestones, which can bring you back from the dead, Rift Crystals, which you can spend to hire additional pawns to join your party, a Port Crystal, which (only in conjunction with a Ferrystone, an item you cannot pay real money for) can be used for fast travel, a makeshift gaol key and a camping kit among others. You can also pay £1.70 for a character editor called Art Of Metamorphosis, which, sure, doesn't look or sound great when viewed out of context.

Capcom have since emphasised in a message to Steam players that many of the DLC items "can be obtained in-game or as paid DLC items", including that aforementioned character editor. They also list the Wakestones, Rift Crystals, Port Crystal, gaol key and more as items you can also obtain in-game, without handing over any real-world money.

I can see why players are angry about this. The presence of microtransactions has been poorly communicated ahead of the game coming out, and given how much backlash there was when Capcom announced its base price of £60/$70, it's understandable why the thought of potentially having to pay more for it all has got players' backs up.

Admittedly, most of the "Mostly Negative" Steam reviews seem to be reacting to the fact they exist at all, without considering whether they're actually critical to your progress in the game or not (for clarity, they are not).

A more legitimate concern mentioned in other Steam reviews, however, is the game's PC performance woes, which our hardware editor James has already reported on extensively. "Dragon’s Dogma 2 takes some serious hardware to maintain consistently smooth performance," he wrote earlier this week, and don't even think about playing it on Steam Deck yet either.

In the same message to players, Capcom have acknowledged Dragon's Dogma 2's performance issues, saying they "sincerely apologize for any inconvenience". They are "investigating/fixing critical problems such as crashes and freezing," and are looking at ways to improve the game's frame rate issues:

"A large amount of CPU usage is allocated to each character and calculating the impact of their physical presence in various areas. In certain situations where numerous characters appear simultaneously, the CPU usage can be very high and may affect the frame rate. We are aware that in such situations, settings that reduce GPU load may currently have a limited effect; however, we are looking into ways to improve performance in the future."