Windows Central Insider
Caught up in the excitement of the June 2026 Nintendo Direct and Dragon's Dogma 2 getting a DLC expansion, Capcom made one crucial announcement that many people (including me) overlooked.
On June 25, 2026, Capcom will be removing several DLC microtransactions from Dragon's Dogma 2 and delisting its Digital Edition from the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Steam's digital stores due to the gameplay changes its Summer patches and Dark Arisen 2 expansion will bring.
To prepare for the release of Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, we'll be discontinuing the Deluxe Edition of Dragon's Dogma 2, as well as certain DLC items on June 24, 5pm PT/ June 25, 1am BST. Also, the digital version of the base game will receive a permanent discount - check… pic.twitter.com/giXfPnmB7BJune 11, 2026
These items that will be removed from the base game include:
- Dragon’s Dogma 2 Deluxe Edition
- A Boon for Adventurers – New Journey Pack
- Harpysnare Smoke Beacons – Harpy Lure Item
- Heartfelt Pendant – A Thoughtful Gift
- Ambivalent Rift Incense – Change Pawn Inclinations
- Makeshift Gaol Key – Escape from Gaol
- Art of Metamorphosis – Character Editor
- Portcrystal – Warp Location Marker
- Wakestone – Restore the Dead to Life
- 500 Rift Crystals – Points to Spend Beyond the Rift
- 1500 Rift Crystals – Points to Spend Beyond the Rift
- 2500 Rift Crystals – Points to Spend Beyond the Rift
If you had bought any of these items, you would still be able to use them in-game.
The only DLC items that will remain untouched will be the Explorer’s Camping Gear – Camping Kit and the Dragon's Dogma Music and Sound Collection – Custom Sounds.
As an added bonus, the base game of Dragon's Dogma 2 will receive a permanent discount on all digital storefronts.
Windows Central's take
If you've played Dragon's Dogma 2 since it launched in 2024, you may have caught wind of people giving Capcom harsh criticism over these microtransactions.
While they were available to obtain the game naturally, they were hard to come by and limited in supply, especially the Portcrystal items.
These were needed to activate the game's fast travel system, and the idea of making a crucial in-game item a microtransaction sparked debate about whether or not this broke immersion or was a pay-to-win item that manipulated people to buy their way out of skipping the tedious travel time so they can progress through the game faster.
So Capcom decided to appease its naysayers by making more Portcrystals obtainable in the base game through its latest update, along with creating an Eternal Ferrystone item so they can fast-travel as much as they want without the need for consumable Ferrystones.
Now, I personally didn't engage in these debates back then as I was more annoyed at Dragon's Dogma 2's sub-optimal performance at launch, but I'm happy Capcom's willing to pull back on controversial DLC like this and just make these features a permanent part of the game.
In fact, I'm shocked a big-time company like Capcom is willing to do this because they could've just easily kept it in to make extra money off completionists who can't help themselves (speaking from experience here). You would never see a company like Activision or EA do this with any of their games, so I consider this a small blessing.
It also makes me wonder: if Capcom can remove microtransactions from a game and make their content permanently more readily available in-game, why don't they do it for other games, like Monster Hunter?
Ever since Monster Hunter World, Capcom has been making piecemeal DLCs for the Monster Hunter series. Most of these paid emotes, chat pictures, and cosmetic armor sets can be safely ignored, as their mid-tier designs don't outshine what you get from playing the game normally.
However, recent games like Monster Hunter Rise and Monster Hunter Wilds have had some paid cosmetic gear DLC with insanely over-the-top designs that make most of the weapon and armor designs of the games they come from look lame by comparison.
Examples include the Cosmoloid armor and weapon set in Monster Hunter Wilds, Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak's Lost Code Weapon set, and cosmetic outfits locked behind Monster Hunter Rise's Nintendo Amiibo figures.
Thanks to Dragon's Dogma 2's update, there's no reason why Capcom can't go back to these games and make these cosmetics permanently available through completing extremely challenging quests where you have to fight multiple hard monsters at once.
Now I realize that this change isn't as needed as Dragon's Dogma 2's DLC was because they were paywalling in-game resources for crucial gameplay mechanics rather than optional cosmetic armor pieces.
However, I'd argue that paywalling cosmetic sets is just as egregious as adding prices to limit gameplay resources, especially in a game like Monster Hunter.
Hunting giant monsters and collecting their parts to make gear is part of why I play these games in the first place. If we just start paying money for these awesome-looking weapons and gear instead of earning them in battle, we're no longer playing Monster Hunter; it's just whale hunting.
By removing Dragon's Dogma 2's microtransactions, I'm hoping that Capcom is starting to realize nobody wants to pay extra money for microtransactions for premium, non-free-to-play games that are getting more and more expensive to buy.
Thus, this could potentially lead to Capcom no longer pay-walling any additional piecemeal content for their games and just having them in the base game by default, whether it's gameplay or cosmetic.
Granted, Capcom's not going to stop charging people for extra cosmetics anytime soon, as its most recent games, Pragmata, Monster Hunter Stories 3, and Resident Evil Requiem, have cosmetics DLC outfits you have to pay extra for besides the main game, but there's always hope for the future.
Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, the large-scale DLC expansion for Dragon's Dogma 2, will be dropping on October 9, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Steam.
🗨️ Over to you
What do you think of Dragon's Dogma 2's gameplay-related microtransactions? Do you think Capcom should start removing cosmetic microtransactions from all its games and make them earnable in-game by completing ultra-hard challenges?
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