---
title: 'Dragon''s Dogma 2 - Dark Arisen Expansion Details'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=u9I7padbE_Q'
video_id: 'u9I7padbE_Q'
date: 2026-07-01
duration_sec: 476
---

# Dragon's Dogma 2 - Dark Arisen Expansion Details

> Source: [Dragon's Dogma 2 - Dark Arisen Expansion Details](https://youtube.com/watch?v=u9I7padbE_Q)

## Summary



## Transcript

[music]
What's going on everybody? Mortem here.
This time bringing you a video about
Dragons Dogma 2, which got some exciting
news over the past couple of weeks,
which is primarily that it is getting a
big Dark Arisen expansion this October.
However, that raised a few interesting
questions, I think for me personally and
a lot of other people as well who were
disappointed with the base game of
Dragons Dogma 2. And to that end, to
provide a little bit of context here, I
reviewed Dragons Dogma 2 when it
released. And I ultimately gave it a buy
on sale as there were a few things in
there that I just didn't really enjoy.
it kind of dropped off a cliff once you
got to the desert part of the game,
reducing the number of active skills you
have and a few other things that were
just overall kind of a nuisance that
brought down the experience and honestly
made it feel a little more like a
remaster of the original than a proper
sequel. And while I have honestly
detailed that in a lot of different
videos, it just so happens that
relatively recently we got this
announcement of this expansion and the
Dark Risen expansion for the original
game did a lot towards making that game
what people know it for today, myself
included. I played it long after that
expansion had been added. And so it only
seems fair then that I inevitably cover
this DLC and talk about what it does for
the game. As to be honest with you, the
mood around it is overall pretty
positive. And given how much I had high
hopes for Dragons Dogma 2, I sincerely
hope that this big expansion DLC winds
up breathing that same life into the
sequel here, even if it doesn't seem
like it is going to address some of the
stuff around the story as I mentioned.
However, simply too early to say there
for sure. But to that end, I want to
talk a little bit about the update
they've already put out as of June 9th,
the upcoming update on August, and then
what the expansion itself should be
adding in October on October 9th in
particular, I think. But do bear in mind
this is not new information. I'm a
little bit behind the ball on this one.
I knew I wanted to cover it, but I had a
lot of pressing stuff going on the past
couple of weeks. But the interesting
thing about life is that you can in fact
just do things. So, here we are. Now,
while the expansion is pretty exciting
news, there's actually a couple changes
coming in the August update in
particular that are of note to me that
I'm very much looking forward to.
However, as I mentioned, the June 9th
patch already added a few things, like
for instance, expanded some of your
options for fast travel, adding new port
crystals, adjusting the price of ferry
crystals, making changes to ox carts,
and overall uh in theory at least,
making fast travel a more, let's say,
convenient experience. On top of that,
they also introduced and adjusted the
balance on a few different items. in
particular. Looks like they increased
the stats you could get on items that
would drop from dungeons. And they also
added a new specialization for your
pawn, the guardian specialization, which
will do things like fend off raids that
could happen on ox carts, as well as
just dispatching smaller enemies that
would attack camp or reducing the health
of larger enemies. Overall, some good
changes in there. They also made changes
to some UI stuff and also fixed some
bugs and things as well. And actually,
to be honest with you, most of this
patch was bug fixes, which I thought was
interesting. And then, of course,
there's the upcoming August update. This
one is not out yet, but we do have an
idea of some of the things that is going
to adjust. Namely, most excitingly for
me actually, it's going to bump up the
active skills back to six, allowing you
to simply do more and have more
abilities and things on offer, which
should go a long way for just doing more
in combat and giving you more options
overall in and of itself. Now, if that
wasn't enough, it also looks like
they'll be adjusting the dragon's
plague, the illness that could befall
your pawns in particular. They mentioned
that they're going to be adding
treatment options seemingly to allow you
to get rid of it more easily, but they
were also vague on some of the other
changes that are apparently coming to
this, like they've mentioned some things
about making it benefit you in some way.
And then they should be adjusting the
save system as well to allow you to save
more freely, it would seem. But again,
details on the specifics of all that
don't seem to be forthcoming at the
moment outside of those generalities.
Presumably, that one will also come with
some bug fixes, which all combined with
the update since launch as well should
hopefully solve some of the performance
problems people reported with this game
as well. But obviously, we will see how
that actually winds up panning out. Then
there is the upcoming expansion itself,
Dark Arisen. So, this is going to do a
few things that they have detailed. In
particular, it's going to add some stuff
to character creation, which I thought
was interesting, mostly because
character creation for this game was
already very robust. But on top of that,
they're adding 12 new dungeons to the
base game, the area that is already
available. So, there will be even new
things to explore there. But the main
bit of content is going to be the new
area to the north, Noran, I believe it's
called. And it looks like this will
function not entirely uh dissimilarly I
should say from the Dark Risen expansion
from one or Bitter Black Isle where
we're going to be trying to get to the
bottom of a mystery surrounding the
fallen dragon there. And along the way
we'll be picking up relics that can then
be appraised and provide a certain
amount of gear progression through that
system as you move through the DLC
itself. They also detail that there is a
character that you'll be uh presumably
teaming up with in some fashion who is
after whatever is going on with this
fallen dragon, but it would hardly be a
dragon's dogma title if the answers were
forthcoming. But that is a rough
approximation of what is going on in
this game at the moment. And from there,
I just kind of wanted to take a minute
to talk about a couple of other things.
And I will say that while all of this
certainly does sound good and I'm
excited to check it out, it doesn't
appear to me at least that they are
going to be doing anything about the
lackluster second area, the sort of
desert area, which could honestly stand
to be reworked in my opinion. That place
was a real letdown compared to the
opening half of the game, which is
actually pretty good. As for the rest of
it, I have high hopes. It is being
directed by the same person who directed
the original one for the original game
as well. And a lot of people really
loved Bitter Black Isle in the original
game. So hopefully they managed to
recapture some of that here. But beyond
that, I really just wanted to say that
I'm glad they didn't abandon it all
together. It originally released back in
early 2024. And so while it took 2 and
1/2 years, they did seemingly put a lot
of work into this expansion and trying
to take in feedback as they did that,
addressing things like stuff with the
weapon skill even outside of the
expansion. And so I guess overall I'm
just hopeful that this will be a better
experience overall for the title, even
if it doesn't exactly fix the launch day
wos like the performance and the things
I've already mentioned. And so while it
certainly is a case of reinforcing the
idea that the best bet for people is
usually to wait for the better version
of the game to finally come out, I will
also say that I had pretty much written
this off. I just kind of assumed after
all this time they were just going to
let it lie and be what it was. And I'm
happy again to see that was not the
case. And as I mentioned, it feels only
fair that after I was uh less than
thrilled with the base game that I take
a look at this expansion when it drops
and see if it makes the game better in
the ways that were important to me.
Anyway, but with that said, I would love
to know what you think about this stuff
down in the comments section below if
you're planning on checking this out for
yourself or anything else you want to
add, I suppose, which naturally means to
like, comment, subscribe, all that
YouTube jazz. But regardless of any of
that, truly just thank you so much for
watching. I really do appreciate it. May
you wander in wisdom and have an amazing
day.