Dragons Dogma 2 has 392 developer credits next to Starfield's 3,902, but credits don't tell the whole story

Based on credit listings at videogame documentation site MobyGames, action RPG Dragon's Dogma 2 may have had around a quarter of the headcount compared to other AAA Capcom releases in recent years.

MobyGames list just 392 people with 402 roles as having worked on the popular RPG game. That’s in comparison to 1,516 people for Resident Evil 4, 1,847 people for Street Fighter 6, and 1,252 people for Devil May Cry 5.

In fact, the first Dragon’s Dogma, released in 2012, has 633 people credited, according to Moby Games. This can’t be the full picture then, right? Well, no, of course not.

The observation was first made on Xitter by user @nib95_ , who also gave comparisons to Diablo 4 (8,694 credits, according to Moby) and Starfield (3,902). The tweet suggested that, “Granted, much of these high numbers are from mass outsourcing, voice acting, translation work, limited or temporary tech help from outside studios etc… but it still highlights just how efficient DD2's development was.”

As is the way of Xitter, however, the real context was actually somewhat buried in the replies, gifted a paltry amount of likes by the few users who valued the bigger picture over a good story. User PorkPoncho advised against using “the credits as a decent source of how many people actually worked on it. A lot of Japanese studios (by extension of Japanese businesses in general) often do not disclose partnerships with third party contractors.”

They went on to detail their own experience working with Japanese divisions within companies, where “we happily advertise the partnership...unless that product is also sold in Japan or by our Japanese entity. [In which case] it’s a massive no no to disclose the third party development work, unless it’s something contractually agreed [edited for clarity.]”

Add on top of this the game industry’s decisively shitty practise of not crediting everyone that worked on a game through its lifecycle, alongside DD2’s five year development time, and a clearer picture of just why this number could be so comparatively small starts to emerge.

It's also worth noting that MobyGames' source their figures in a manner similar to Wikipedia, crowdsourcing then verifying information before publishing it. The site itself was bought by Atari a few years back. You can view their standards here. "Credits entails the people and companies listed in the credits section of the game - manual/in-game, beginning of the game and if verified and approved by an admin uncredited people who were left out," they say.

Still, everything considered, it’s not unreasonable to think that DD2 - a sequel to a popular but relatively cultish game from twelve years ago - may have seen some hesitation from Capcom to throw its full weight behind it, especially compared to the likes of a Resident Evil 4.

“The game's an anecdote generator, where all of its AI and combat and day-night-cycle systems coalesce into bouts of chaos that'll test your improvisation skills but never your patience,” wrote Edders in our review. I concur, having found the space in between its sometimes mundane quests the best part of the game. Nice going, then, to however many were involved in its creation.