When Dragon's Dogma 2 released back in 2024, our reviewer described it as "one of the best titles on the market." With the Dark Arisen expansion, Dragon's Dogma 2 is set to get even better (as well as debuting on the Switch 2).

Dark Arisen adds an entirely new biome to the game, the frozen north known as Norgan. Norgan is integrated into the existing world map, with the Norgandian Settlement appearing far to the west and a bit south of Melve. I thought the name of the settlement would have been a bit more on the creative side, but perhaps the Norgan natives are just the direct sort.

The default quest for the demo tasked my party with finding relics, which are items that cannot be immediately used. After finding one, you have to bring it back to the settlement to be appraised by Jiera, an elder who specializes in relics. After Jiera has identified the items for you, they can be used, saved, or sold. Relics have enhanced offense and defense when compared to standard items, so the time spent hunting for them isn't wasted.

A secondary quest during the demo saw a domesticated direwolf named Freki join the party to help out on the hunt for relics. You'll be able to have Freki help you find more relics, even after the quest is finished. Just make sure to have some fresh meat handy to keep her happy.

Unfortunately, Freki wasn't the only domesticated direwolf in the area. Beoreans are active in the area around the Norgandian Settlement, and they've also trained direwolves to work for them. It makes them more of a threat than random wildlife.

One element of the environment that stood out during my adventure was the verticality. Norgan seems to have plenty of hills and cliffs, which can provide solid advantages during a battle if you use them well.

For example, at one point, my party came across a sasquatch-looking giant with elephant tusks. The giant was strong and imposing, but there were accessible cliffs nearby. While my party kept the giant busy on the plain, I ran up the cliff and attacked from above. This allowed us to spread out aggro, while effectively whittling away at the giant's health.

Further up the mountain was our final destination: a derelict fortress guarded by ghouls and an undead dragon within. Physically the dragon appeared to be decrepit and decaying, but it still moved fluidly and packed a punch. Hammering it with attacks left a black, oozing stump in place of its head, but that didn't seem to slow it down.

Without warning, the undead beast completely regenerated itself, restoring its full health bar as well as all of its missing body parts. Knocked to the ground, there was nothing I could do as the mysterious knight Eir appeared and said the dragon was her burden to bear. She walked toward the undead dragon as the screen faded to black and the demo ended.

Aside from being a nice tease, the battle with the undead dragon left me with plenty of story questions. If the Arisen and Dragon are linked, where did this one come from? Is Eir an Arisen? How do you kill something that's already dead? Needless to say, it'll be interesting to see where Capcom takes the story.

Mechanics-wise, searching out and finding relics is a nice twist on the existing equipment system. It should help encourage exploration, so long as the resulting loot isn't completely random. When playing a game, it's nice to feel like my efforts were rewarded rather than wasted.

All that said, the undead Dragon and the land of Norgan aren't the only new locations coming to Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen. The Dark Arisen expansion also includes 12 challenge dungeons. Dubbed the Lost Rites, these dungeons are meant to test your skills. The character creator has also been enhanced, allowing you to further customize both your Arisen and your pawns.

All of the above is exclusive to Dark Arisen, but owners of the base game are already benefiting from quality-of-life upgrades Capcom released at the beginning of this month to prepare for the expansion.

One of the highlights is an update to the save system, with the game now supporting three separate character save slots. An item to cure Dragonsplague has also been added. Pawn behavior has been improved, making them act more intelligently in combat. If your main pawn travels to other worlds in between your sessions, they can bring back loot from enemies they defeat during those adventures. These changes are in addition to a number of balancing and UI changes that improve how the game plays.

Even if you're not planning on buying Dark Arisen right away, the base game updates are enough to encourage lapsed players to give it another go.

The Dark Arisen expansion releases on Oct. 9, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen (the base game with the expansion) debuts on the Nintendo Switch 2 on the same day.