Capcom's Dragon's Dogma series has always fascinated me as a fan of fantasy RPGs, but for some reason or another, I could never get fully into it. On the one hand, the games feature gigantic, sprawling immersive worlds that don't hold the player's hand while encouraging and rewarding them for uncovering their secrets.
Not to mention, the Dragon's Dogma games feature fun, exciting, advanced combat systems akin to Capcom's other action games like Monster Hunter and Devil May Cry, where you and your AI-driven companions (Pawns) work together to bring down giant bosses.
On the other hand, the Dragon's Dogma games have had exceedingly annoying drawbacks that have kept me from fully enjoying them.
These problems ranged from making essential quality-of-life features for open-world games like fast-travel a pain to find to absurd balancing and performance issues at launch that we'd have to wait for their Dark Arisen expansions to fix.
But my biggest pet peeve of all with the Dragon's Dogma series is one simple question: "Why don't these games have co-op?"
Think about it: a core aspect of Dragon's Dogma is working together in a party to fight monsters, yet we're always saddled with AI party members whose intelligence in combat ranges from adequate to downright incompetent.
Imagine the idea of playing Dragon's Dogma with a group of real people that you can coordinate online with so you can pull off the game's unique team attacks more consistently, and laugh as you all hang on for dear life while grappling a flying griffin or dragon?
It is such a huge missed opportunity on Capcom's part that it didn't capitalize on this, as I feel Dragon's Dogma was made for online co-op, and it would've made the series more popular with fans.
But then again, considering Capcom has a history of making multiplayer games feature needlessly convoluted matchmaking systems like Monster Hunter Wilds or having an identity crisis between sticking with PvE or PvP content like Exoprimal, Capcom probably would've messed up the potential co-op mode for Dragon's Dogma too.
Now it seems that YouTuber 'ButFrog' agrees with me that Dragon's Dogma lacking co-op is such a huge missed opportunity, so they've decided to take matters into their own hands and create an awesome-looking mod for the PC version of Dragon's Dogma 2, suitably named "DD2gether - Dragon's Dogma 2 Coop Mod".
This work-in-progress mod is designed to allow players to connect to a host player's world (up to 4-player parties) as either their player-created Arisen or primary Pawn (complete with their gear) by using Steam lobbies for peer-to-peer connections online in a similar vein to Elden Ring's popular Seamless Co-op mod.
The mod is currently in its pre-alpha stage, and ButFrog is working to ensure it works with Dragon's Dogma 2's base game and its upcoming Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen DLC expansion.
So far, this mod is looking promising even in its pre-alpha stages. It's so cool seeing actual real players fight together, and hilarious seeing them get knocked back miles at the same time by a minotaur's axe or a lich's ice spell.
Not to mention, this will allow players to synergize the abilities of Dragon's Dogma 2's many Vocation classes more easily than hoping and waiting for Pawns deciding to use them when you could've used their healing talents five minutes ago before being eaten by a drake (I'm still bitter).
Still, there's plenty of work to be done like making sure online connections are more stable, enabling quest progression for all players (as currently quests can only be completed independently per player), and allowing all treasure chest items to be obtainable for the whole party (as currently only a few certain treasure chest items can be obtained by the host player, but the rest of the game's gathering node items can accessed by the whole party just fine).
Plus, the Trickster Vocation class is currently unusable while this mod is active, as the Trickster's main gimmick of supporting Pawns and distracting enemies for Pawns to beat up doesn't work while there are no Pawns on the field (though this could change in the future).
There's currently no release date planned for this mod, so it's likely we'll see it months or over a year after the DLC expansion launches on October 9, 2026.
However, that doesn't mean I won't be playing Dragon's Dogma 2 before the mod comes out, because it's been looking more enticing to play in the coming months.
In addition to the DLC expansion, which will add a new zone, monsters, loot, and endgame content, Dragon's Dogma 2 is removing its egregious microtransactions while adding long-overdue performance patches and balance adjustments in the coming months.
If it all comes together, I have a feeling Capcom will have another hit on its hands and that Dragon's Dogma will finally get the worldwide recognition it craves, made even better by the DD2gether mod if the finished product ends up working as promised (it's a shame that the Xbox version won't get access to this mod like PC users will).
Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen, the large-scale DLC expansion for Dragon's Dogma 2, is set to release on October 9, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch 2, and Steam.
If you want to follow DD2Gether's development or even gain early access to the mod, check ButFrog's Reddit or Discord channels.
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