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It feels weird to call them pawns in Dragon’s Dogma 2. These companions remind me of how Tolkien, and by extension Shadow of War, treated orcs. Even an attempt at giving them free will was muddled with the player’s mind-control powers. Dragon’s Dogma lore is worse – it considers pawns from the Rift free from willpower and aging. Except for your main pawn, they don’t level up and merely absorb knowledge for the ‘chosen one.’
You can grow out of their skill level, making their combat prowess irrelevant with time. Despite that, losing a pawn can be stressful. While they can be revived, there’s a difference between a tender farewell and a giant ape tossing Moira into a brine-infested lake. In the spirit of exploration, I decided to let lost pawns stay lost. After all, I had to get higher-level ones eventually.
Fortunately, one pawn stays with you through it all. I designed my main pawn Argent like a lion-faced Geralt from The Witcher but with a more amicable disposition. As a Fighter, his shield proved invaluable as I peppered enemy mobs with Mage spells. Even if a spell drained all my stamina, Argent would sprint to offer a helping hand. I’d climb dragon necks knowing that he’d catch me if I fell. Whenever we got to rest at an inn, I’d wake to the Beastren being praised by players who had borrowed him. The absolute legend was even gifted a real Ferrystone once.
I bestowed on him the honor of carrying the squad’s camping tent moments before a wolf pushed him off a bridge. In Dragon’s Dogma 2, you can’t rest and restore your party’s health without a camping kit. After a long night of running into campfires I couldn’t use, a Riftstone finally let me bring Argent back to life. Shame washed over me as he apologized.
You’d think I’d learn from such an experience. Reader, I did buy a spare camping kit. And yet again, Argent was thrown from a bridge like a cartoon character. Believing that my forethought had saved me, I egged my exhausted pawns on a midnight walk to Dragonsbreath Tower. Just as our lanterns gave up, we reached a campfire and made a wondrous discovery.
Hours after I had hired a new pawn on Battahl’s desert trails, my spare camping kit was comfortably sitting in a tavern’s storeroom. I forgot that a farewell also involved sending their items back to storage. So began another night of backtracking to a Riftstone, one where raids had me snacking on rotten fruit. The bridges I broke on the way to Dragonsbreath Tower made the return more treacherous but we made it to Argent’s apology. The icing on the cake was spotting a camping kit in the morning, mere meters from the campfire I had withdrawn from. It’s emergent moments like these that will stay with me far longer than the main story itself.
As I hired new pawns out of necessity, I learned to appreciate their mannerisms and the time we’ve shared. Some endings even turned bittersweet. The kind Beastren Nero considered it her birthright to point me to every shiny bauble on the road. As for the mean-faced Kratos who replaced her, the only emotion I ever saw in him was when Medusa turned him to stone. Unlike most archers, Kratos liked to use foes as throwable items or climb them if he couldn’t, a tactic that didn’t help with a petrifying gaze. The next time I found him at a Riftstone, he wasn’t pleased. But the aggressive archer had me beaming with pride when he charged the final dragon boss and stabbed their nose with an arrow.
My gentle thief Riku borrowed some genes from Nero as her childlike wonder guided me to every treasure in the vicinity. She was particularly well-versed in enemy weaknesses, with constant shoutouts as her lightning-infused daggers found purchase on a poor sod. And as the glowing succubi of the night skies zipped towards me, I could count on Riku’s grappling hook to ground them if my lightning strikes didn’t.
When the inevitable march of time raised my stats, I had to let her go. But after a few boring companions, I was glad to see Riku at my level at an interesting Riftstone. As I looked around, all my old pawns greeted me, some at different levels and even different classes. The Riftstone of Remembrance turned the ritual of window shopping pawns into a walk down memory lane.
Between bizarre community creations and default Capcom pawns, there are a lot of faces that don’t get picked. I’m all for a cursed Pikachu, shirtless Leon Kennedy, and Frog Daddy road trip but being under-leveled earned them a quick disqualification. Pawns lend a sense of impermanence to the world, where even the Arisen and the dragon are replaced in cycles. But sometimes, pawns return at a higher level, complete with new gear and knowledge to aid your journey once more. It’s a cycle I wasn’t too comfortable with but one I grew to accept.
This transfer of knowledge made DD2’s world feel like a shared one despite being a single-player experience. With lessons from other worlds, pawns paint a picture of experiences you have yet to live. Instead of dialogue options, Dragon’s Dogma 2 expands your choices through the paths your pawns offer you. It’s an elegant mechanic that builds on video games’ greatest strength – free will. I hope the pawns’ original Arisen owners like the flowers I send whenever we part ways.
