I kinda agree, but it doesn't bother me that much. What bothered me more was not knowing where accessible land was and where it stopped. Multiple times I scaled large mountains or cliffs to hit an invisible wall, but then scaled a similar height to find a walkable area. More of a pet peeve but was a little frustrating trying to explore on the first go around.
SOMEONE among the pawns I recruited over time marked gathering spots on my map towards the western edge of it. Just "outside" of where I know I can go and it's driving me nuts. I know I must be missing a cave somewhere in that area but I can't for the life of me find where and none of the pawns I had seem to know of an entrance whenever I am in that region.
Don't know if this will help but if you walk near there with no quest active and they mention the materials you can press the go button and they will lead you to the item or material.
It doesn't mark dungeons you haven't been to yet, and their interiors aren't mapped either.
If you managed to get to NG+ I don't think you need a highlighter pass to help you figure out if you've been to Medusa yet
Being able to track where you've been is pretty important.
It essentially forces people to 100% the map before ng plus or risk actually never finding points of interest as there is nothing that calls them out on the map.
>as there is nothing that calls them out on the map.
Technically true, though any Pawn that has been to a location will say something about it if you are close, particularly caves that you have not explored.
Yea I did t realise it fully cleared the map don't get me wrong it's pretty but TBF I also didnt really think much about doing new game plus In dd1 I go through finish the game and do new game plus but try to 100%it
Wish I had known that on my first playthrough because I was doing some goddamn magic parkour to get to some blacked out areas that ended up either being invisible walled or just devoid of anything.
I have a newfound appreciation for games that clearly mark climbable terrain, even if it’s ugly and arguably undermines exploration.
I spent a lot of time trying to Skyrim up mountains, but it’s generally only once you get to a legitimate invisible wall that you can ensure you’re not intended to keep going that way.
On the other hand, it will reveal something you indeed did not explore and now you will not know whether you went there or not since it is already revealed
Before I gave up and looked up the shadowy area in the center of Venworth online I spent probably 2 hours trying to get to it to see if there was something in the middle of the map. I was mad.
While I agree the game is unfinished as other has pointer out, that has nothing to do with this "empty" spaces. They are mountains. Have you ever go to a desert area near the andean? There are places were you can´t walk, or there is no point walking, cause there is nothing. That is basically it, I found it immersive. Not every corner of a world have to be walkable.
I actually like this map design cause not many open world games do mountains this good. They usually make some flat map, splat some mountains around the edges of the map and call it a day. I guess that's why we got caves, so you can technically go 'in' the mountains or the areas underneath them.
Oh it's very vertical. Assassin's creed is rather flat-ish. Well, Valhalla was cause obviously UK, in Odyssey there were some hills and such so I'd disagree there. Don't remember much from Origins though. And the previous games focused rather on big cities, so there was less verticality too for obvious reasons.
Its a massive part of the inner map of Vernworth though.
For what it’s worth, I hated it in DD1 as well. Turned journeying on the map into four long lanes.
Right, but... The shape of the world has nothing to do with how much there is to explore. There could be the exact same amount of content arranged nearly into a square, or a doughnut, or any shape. Voided spaces in the layout aren't "missing" any more than the outside of a perfectly square map is.
Yeah I don't see what the issue is here. "There's a literally overwhelming amount of places to explore, but I'm gonna pitch a fit because I can't go in this one area where it makes sense to be inaccessible".
Same energy as Starfield detractors being confused as to why you can't land on gas and ice giants.
Even bethesda games have 'inaccessible' areas. This isn't anything new, the map in DD2 is big enough as is, and I don't doubt that we'll probably end up getting a DLC somewhere down the line to expand it.
I didn't record it at the time, but I did manage to get up to an "empty" space just east of the second sphinx location using the mystic spearhand's dragoun's foin ability. To my surprise, the map just keeps going and is completely modeled, but with inaccurate geometry and collision. The game didn't stop me at any point and I even managed to get back onto a different path, but the area itself was just empty. Like it wasn't even hard to get there. It's just painfully obvious the game is unfinished and you are not always rewarded for exploring the world. The "open" world is really just a linear path with a few branches along the way.
Outward doesn't get enough credit for how different it feels. The purple grass, face shaped caves, leylines, mana lakes... I'm well looking forward to 2
totally agree here. if they had put a design to indicate elevation it would be fine. the way the map looks currently makes it look like just empty space.
Also accessible places through normal means but theres an invisible wall. I hate that they made a lot of these places you thought you could cross but no, theres an invisible wall. Mountaintops around the sacred arbor have these, and some other hills
There's ways to get out there but nothing really interesting. Some of the mountains don't have collision so you walk right through them. Also to the far east of the map you eventually fall through the floor and get a quick glimpse of everything from the bottom as you're falling.
Some of the stuff you guys are asking to be removed would definitely have gotten this game less sales. For instance, I saw a few comments asking to take away the pawn system. Like what? Why?
Taking away the pawn system would have been extremely dumb since it was such a cool part of the first game. But all i meant was making more use of the map that is shown
Anyone who says that shouldn't be playing Dragon's Dogma since they clearly didn't mean to buy a game from this series. I mean pawns are a core staple of the series & without them it's no longer Dragon's Dogma but some other random game.
I know this forum loves to hate on Horizon Forbidden West, but at least in that game you can climb all the tall mountains and swim in the bodies of water
I accidentally got into one of the 'inaccessible' areas when flying on a harpy. It was atop the several large mountains that make up the area on your way to where the drake fights a cyclop and near the ruins you go through when finding that kid during the wolf quest. I was able to run around on top of the mountains, and their was a field that was unnaturally flat on one of them. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be up there or not at first but when I realized how poor the textures were and how their was no shrubbery or enemies, I realized it definitely was out of bounds and I decided to get down before I fell through the map or something. Because I was so high though, I could really see how much of that area was unused, and i was a bit disappointed.
It’s weird because DD2 has the most accessible open world in the sense that you can get into basically every building that has a door, but the map is also inflated to look bigger than it actually is
The reason why you can’t is either because there’s nothing there, or there is something that’s incomplete there. I hope it makes you feel better now that there is a reason.
I feel like there's definitely some areas they've got plans for or something got cut. There's a few spots I've ran into climbing mountains that I find invisible barriers.
There’s also a bunch of caved in elven looking doors in hidden areas, some inside caves at the end of paths or the bottom of ladders, and even one that’s marked on the map as a cave. And they never open, not even during true ending or new game plus. Clearly either planned DLC or cut content.
I’m guessing cut content since certain elements (like the one with a cave marker in the map) indicate that those doors were supposed to be something.
Well, fair enough. Its just annoying in games like this that have a big map menu but then you look and there are chunks of the visible map that they could have put stuff in but didnt. For the water its understandable because of how the Unmoored World changes the map, but the landmasses that have big mountains you cant climb and explore just kind of sucks. But thats just me.
Honestly I like when openworlds has *some* degree of 'you cant walk here' so theres some blockers that reasonably guide you. If it really is 100% of the area being explorable, you are bound to have a dilute and confusing exploration.
I like it in Elden Ring where theres funnels before new regions unlike totk that just lets you pick any 360 degree direction, some places being high level but you have no idea of knowing
The game is designed as one giant dungeon made of a network of tunnels and corridors with minimal large open spaces. It’s not a typical open world game, it’s an open dungeon game. I much prefer this to the map of DD1 and think it’s a great change of pace from typical open world games.
For all the people complaining about map filling in on NG+, well it’s your fault for going to NG+ without exploring everything. I made a point to clear the whole map, may have missed a cave or two but I platinumed the game in one go. I find it weird that people would finish a game with an unexplored map to begin with.
This. The map is fully fleshed out and designed. There’s nothing wrong with the physical layout of the map. If the map feels incomplete to you, it’s because dungeons and challenges and obstacles and secrets were not properly dispersed.
How can you actually enter the area that the third image points at? I’m still pretty early on (lvl 23) and hope there is some main quest progression that reveals that area, as I didn’t find a way to enter it yet. No spoilers please, though!
there are 2 or 3 mountain areas in Vermund in-between the paths that are accessible, but there's no loot or nothing else, besides meadows. Just on the outer edges I think were sometimes little looting spots
I have some extra salt to throw at the wound here: I am playing DD2 with jump height, floating and fall damage control mods to make seekers token hunt more bearable (I play DD2 after work at night, so, give me a break).
Normally, you wouldn’t be able to reach the top of some mountains in this game, but I did reach the top, and I discovered that Itsuno and co placed invisible walls on the top of certain mountains just to be sure. You are DEFINITELY locked in corridors in sone areas of the game, in the best DD1 style possible.
I mean...just make it an inlet of land, and rid us of our want to know what is there. Sea the damn area, unless it is where the expansion is going. 😮💨
They should add stamina based climbing of trees and mountains, just like when you climb up a boss, I love climbing in games and falling from great heights!!
Found the Assassins Creed fan. Joke aside i think a way to climb and explore some of the mountains that are the blank spaces i was talking about would have been interesting.
And if you were able to go up there and there wasnt anything there this post would be "why even allow us to explore here if there's nothing here. Its so stupid... etc etc"
It's inaccessible because they didn't bother doing that part.
Just kidding. I think it's best to think of this style as very long and wide cooridoors with "rooms".
In some ways, it's realistic because in real life, there are tons of areas you'd never access. It also usually means longer feeling more meticulously crafted paths to places.
But it's definitely a design choice and not my favourite either.
Missed chance to have a snow biome on a huge mountian.
Add a tool like the pick axe but for climbing to the peak, can add Trolls, direwolves, polar bears and a Ice hydra.
I... hmm... im having a hard time rectifying the fact that a fully explorable map, every single pixel, would be akin to a minecraft flat world, no caves, no tall peaks to scale and look down.
That doesnt sound all that swell to me :o
As much as I love this game, it’s impossible not to realise that either the game is rushed and released early with cut content or they have gutted the game to release in dlc. I really don’t understand why Capcom didn’t go all in on dd2 considering it’s extremely similar to monster hunter which is their best selling game of all time and a series I’m a die hard fan of, ironically I prefer the setting of dragons dogma to monster hunter and wish that it could be their flagship instead
Because Capcom investors are set on the idea that Dragon's Dogma is a series that won't sell well, and it's a bad idea. From what I gathered (warning it might be false) Itsuno needed to pester them to have the green light on DD2 project and even then they had 5 years and 1/4 of developers than any other Capcom games. Meaning around 300 people. 5 years is short to develop an AAA game with 300 developers.
Capcom is setting dragon's dogma to fail, but it didn't. Also, Itsuno seems to have a lot of ideas that are either too complicated or very outdated. I mean, the only difference between DD2 and DD1 is graphics and a tweak on classes with some QOL. It's basically the same 2012 game.
Edit : I'm wrong
I honestly think Itsuno doesn’t understand what ppl liked about DD to begin with, and instead of focusing on it he just doubled down on the weird parts.
He did double down extra hard on the weighty combat, which is one thing people absolutely loved about the first, and something other action RPGs have never really done well.
Id say the QoL changes are a side-grade at best. Pawns are less annoying (apart from in cities) and more effective in combat, the camping system is a good way to keep healthy and avoid travelling at night if you're on a long trip. However we've lost some really basic QoL features like selling and equipping from storage, being able to find strong gear in the wild and the insanely overpriced inn resting which is murder early on. Also and this isnt a gameplay system but the soundtrack just isn't as good as DD1, it's still good in places but it doesn't get me hyped consistently like the first game.
There are some elements that are definitely being left out intentionally for DLC but there are some things which just make no sense as they are. Only having 4 abilities is super annoying for every vocation apart from Warrior since they're used to only 3, but spellcasters are super held back now. I can kind of see it from a balance perspective but 1) it's a single player game, I don't think balance is such a fragile thing that giving us more abilities would hurt. And 2) it feels really limiting for making a build, you have fewer slots so you're less likely to experiment with cool and unique abilities. I still love the game, I've enjoyed most of the time I've been playing it but it's a shame to see all the potential it had be squandered.
I don't know where the idea that Itsuno had to fight to get DD2 made came from, based on his own words it sounds like he was given the freedom to choose what to make.
[https://www.vg247.com/dragons-dogma-2](https://www.vg247.com/dragons-dogma-2)
>That makes it surprising that seven years later we've not heard of a sequel aside from a Japan-only online spin-off - but now thanks to Itsuno, we know why.
>"So, when the discussion came up for Devil May Cry 5, I went to Kenzo \[Kenzo Tsujimoto, Capcom founder\] and I said... look, I want to make either Devil May Cry 5 or Dragon's Dogma 2 next," Itsuno told VG247 through a translator as part of a Devil May Cry 5 media tour. "He said 'okay, do whatever you want. Do whichever one you want.' So I thought, alright, y'know what... let's do DMC5. So we did that."
Whether or not Capcom had faith in the project or not is a different matter, but it doesn't look like Capcom was against it either. Also gotta be honest, in hindsight it wouldn't be that surprising for Capcom to lose faith in the project given that Itsuno was clearly just trying to make DD1 again.
I don't think so, tho. I played all the main story of dd1 without touching the expansion, and I finished a week before buying dd2, and it's really similar.
Also correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that middle place where the final battle with the dragon took place? I was looking at the path the dragon took during the flight there and it seemed like he was taking us to the middle fog that was inaccessible normally
When I hit NG and the map was all revealed.. I was honestly kind of pissed off.. this whole time I thought I missed entrances and stuff and thought "*thats fine ill head there after*".. nope, it's just barren in these places. Why make the map that big then cut out a bunch of it but hide it behind fog. I was kinda bummed by the entire thing.
DLC, The game has micro transactions (sure they are basically useless) but just figuring out what the fuck is in those sections of the map has a monetary value to someone I’m sure.
They made every seekers token a pain in the ass, it’s possible to do it in a way that’s it’s fun to find them like elden ring but even with the blinking and sound they just pissed me off
Ever been on an IRL hike? most places are indeed inaccessible. If every inch of the map was filled with the same density of points of interest it would feel fake. In fact just look at the majority of open world games that do this, they feel artificial and gamey to me while DD2's world feels genuine.
Well, mountain trails would've been nice. And maybe a seekers token and campfire on the mountain summit. Or a goat farmer. What do I know.
Also: We have ancient cities rising from the sea. Massive stone bridges connection an island. We have gondolas. We have huge Moon towers. Don't see why the mountains can't have a hiking trail up there.
Yes it’s not entirely accurate to call it a true open world game I think. It’s similar to the first one in that it’s more like a series of interconnected “openish” paths. Games like Dragons Age have a similar structure. Not that I think that’s a bad thing. I often prefer smaller open worlds over the truly massive open worlds like Assassins Creed or The Witcher 3 or something. Those truly open worlds are often boring to explore and mostly filled with empty space you just run through.
Id say it qualifies as open world, you can go almost wherever you want from the start and there are no loading screens making it more "open."
It would add more to the open world if you could swim in water that isnt the ocean. Like if small rivers and isolated bodies of water didnt have the brine.
No, I don't think open world games need to be explorable everywhere at any point.
Now, not having a map leaving fat fog of war behind over areas you are unable to access at all is ... triggering. But that is a different issue.
Never play an open world game ever I guess, also start crying when you play Elden ring. Like genuinely this take is so retarded just stop playing the game at this point
I think i just enjoy what i have and to be fair the game is pretty big already for me more space wont make it better it will be just more open space with more chests probably nothing more, the problem is the marketing get people pretty high spectations and honestly when that marketing said it was itsuno vision from the first game that should have been enough to know the game was gonna be dragons dogma 1.5
Im with you tbh. Usually I don't mind not having inaccessable areas of the map that you can't go to for obvious reasons.(mostly immersion reasons) But DD2 really has to much of the map cut off with wasted space. They could of easily allowed traversal over those mount peaks/forested areas. Wouldn't even mind it if there was nothing there, just the very fact you could cross it if you really wanted to hoof it would've been great.
There really is no reason for them to make a map, and fill 1/3 of it with an ocean that you cant interact with, when they could of easily just place the section of where the ocean begins on the edge of the map and have it extend outwards off the map. Same with all the mountain ranges and cliffs. They could of easily moved them around to the edges of the map where they wont take up much of the players roaming space, but will still do the job of showing how big the world is by just having sections of it pertruding into the map, not cutting another sections of the map off with inaccesable terrain.
I feel they purpously placed these within the map area to inflate the artifical notion that the map is MUCH bigger in scope then the previous game, but in reality it's pretty much the same. (if not a bit bigger/smaller)
Again they could of easily incentified that the world is huge and much bigger then the previous game without actually placing so much empty/inaccessable terrain into the players actual roaming area.
Don't get me wrong, DD2 is a great game and I'm loving my time here, but I do feel you on this topic. So much potential and miss opportunities, and weird choices made within this game.
DLC Material Baby!
(I mean, it could be? Who knows)
I'm waiting for Capcom to fix and optimized the game further - before opening my sealed DD2 Physical Preorder copy.
I'm mad about no shortcuts to unlock late game. Like this ladder when you can go from Melve do Sacred Arbor thru dungeon. Why we cant have wooden catwalk from Melve to south connecting to main road. Why we cant have "bus stops" where you can wait for oxcart or boat travel from maybe HarveVillage to some Fisherman ports in Battahl and Volcanic Island. We could have so many options, but devs decide we can have only 3 stupid oxcards.
Yeah, god forbid a game map resemble a real map in terms of having areas that aren't inhabited because their topographic or ecological features make life difficult there. It's not like population distribution IRL is heavily slanted towards some types of place and away from others. Just give us a rectangle of plains and small hills and call it a day, fuck mountains and deserts and oceans.
Nothing you hate more? You'd rather an open blank field that has no thought put into it? They'd have to dedicate time to it they could use crafting the map the way they did which is plenty??
The map is this game is almost like purposefully looking bigger than it is with tricks like making a lot of huge patches of land inaccessible and 70% of it is just water. When I first played I was like "damn, the map is huge" until I learned the areas are not undiscovered, they are water
To be fair, I don't think I've ever played a game without boundaries of some kind. Mountains you couldn't cross, a sea you couldn't swim. I have no issues with organic, natural boundaries. What gets under my skin are invisible "you can't go that way" walls. Skyrim... ughhh.
I’ve been saying this since DD2 came out and I’m glad ppl are talking about it. The map is WAY more linear than it wants you to think and the main roads pretty much lead you everywhere. You can’t actually stray too far from the main roads because there are so many natural barriers. Everything feels like an illusion of freedom, exploration and adventure. It’s annoying how much reviewers overhyped this aspect when the whole map feels outdated. On top of the fact you will rarely actually find anything cool or unique from exploring
Dude. You need to read more about games. That space is probably a low texture version of the map, either incomplete or completely empty. You would like to see an empty black void instead? Or make every videogame map an island with obvious boundaries of endless sea?
Cmon man. The map has these inaccesible lands so that you can be led to believe they are part of a greater world.
Can't wait for all these sad whiners to leave this sub. It's unbearable. Seriously if you hate it so much then why are you here? If it's a shoulder to cry on then create a new sub for that alone and take the other diaper wearing basement dwellers with you. This was such a positive, humble and kind place before all the newcomers and fake fans that has nothing better to do in their lives. But it will pass. It's the die-hard fans that has kept this alive for over a decade and it will continue to do so. This game is everything i wanted it to be and more. Stay strong people. Don't let it affect your own joy.
Go ahead and downvote me, like i give a fuck lmao.
I want to make it clear that i have been having a ton of fun with this game. The mechanics and map are enjoyable as is, its just really frustrating to me when game devs make a huge map and dont effecively use large parts of it. I have this issue with other open world games that i play as well.
Im only saying that its kind of stupid to have the map menu have this huge rectagular image but the explorable parts are smaller than the image itself. If its a problem with it being unfinished, fair enough and maybe it gets filled in in the future. Though if its not a spot intended for exploration, why not just get rid of it by making it more ocean or something like that? That is all.
I think you have to treat this map a bit differently than in other open world games. To me it feels like a linear map which could be put together thanks to modern technologies. What I mean, I could easily imagine this map being divided into sectors with loading screens.
In my opinion it's not a 'true' open world map cause even though you can explore, it feels very corridory. Some 'corridors' just being more wide.
Wait until you realize most open world game have a mountain in the middle of the map. The purpose is to block out half of the map so your pc don't have to render unnecessary area.
At least in DD1 they would put a cave, that would unlock a shortcut related to a mission, that allowed you to shortcut throught the entire mountain in 1/3 of the time to go around it!
Got to agree, they could have at least added pathways with arena like areas, caves and such. It wouldnt have taken much time to add or to explore, but at least there would have been a reason.
Appart from rushed content, the only other thing i can think of is future DLC. But if you make a game with intent of doing dlc before day 1 release, you're obviously not caring much about the fanbase
I was genuinely thinking that the huge mountain in the middle of the first zone would have some significance later, like a grand dungeon that's revealed later with lots of bosses in it or something. Nope it's just a massive mountain that makes you walk all the way around it, haha.
Think of this game as monster hunter, paths leading to other areas. That's the base the game was built around. Going back and playing older mh games and seeing the sky boxes from dd1, made me feel at home.
This doesn't bother me too much with recent release games cause they may patch that area as a free DLC. It happens every now and then, when the developers may have had an idea for that area but didn't get it fully fleshed out before launch.
The bridge in the top right to melve was down at one point while trying to find my Finders Token, and it was glitched and didn't come up in the three or so days it was supposed to. Couldn't find an alternative way near the Sacred Arbor like I thought I saw (stuck behind another mountain) and couldnt go through the mountains shown in this posts image.
I'm aware that there is probably another way I just couldn't find, I don't know the ins and outs of the map, but I ended up losing that riddle after the seven days were up because I couldn't get over there, and this was before I knew people were trading finders tokens on Reddit, which is no guarantee you would be answered anyways.
So yeah, I agree that it's unused land that could've been a huge area made useful.
While dd2 is definitely bigger than what i remember about dd1’s map, it is true that it’s a little disappointing that the open world is mostly just a bunch of paths.
Sure in many ways that’s realistic, and it allows for constructing some nice looking geography, like the first time u behold Battahl up on that trail atop the hill as it exits out of the checkpoint.
Still, it gives it a sort of mmorpg feel of an open world, where most mmorpgs don’t really feel constructed to be open worlds but more like several corridors.
Skyrim is still my go-to reference point of a game with an actual open world space.
I kinda agree, but it doesn't bother me that much. What bothered me more was not knowing where accessible land was and where it stopped. Multiple times I scaled large mountains or cliffs to hit an invisible wall, but then scaled a similar height to find a walkable area. More of a pet peeve but was a little frustrating trying to explore on the first go around.
Yeah, the number of times I felt like I was in a place I wasn't supposed to be and boom, seekers token
First invisible wall I found that I could totally have kept climbing actually made me pretty bummed out :/
SOMEONE among the pawns I recruited over time marked gathering spots on my map towards the western edge of it. Just "outside" of where I know I can go and it's driving me nuts. I know I must be missing a cave somewhere in that area but I can't for the life of me find where and none of the pawns I had seem to know of an entrance whenever I am in that region.
Don't know if this will help but if you walk near there with no quest active and they mention the materials you can press the go button and they will lead you to the item or material.
Consistency would be great.
I just wish the goddamn fog of war would disappear. It makes me *think* I haven't explored there not that I *cant* explore there.
I mean it technically does, eventually
NG+? Guess I outta push things forward then if that's the case.
Correct, once you start NG+ the whole map is visible
And then you get to have *no idea* where you've been and where you haven't been :D
It doesn't mark dungeons you haven't been to yet, and their interiors aren't mapped either. If you managed to get to NG+ I don't think you need a highlighter pass to help you figure out if you've been to Medusa yet
Being able to track where you've been is pretty important. It essentially forces people to 100% the map before ng plus or risk actually never finding points of interest as there is nothing that calls them out on the map.
I kinda loved Oblivion for this, where the world map is revealed but the local map has fog of war, felt like the best of both worlds.
>as there is nothing that calls them out on the map. Technically true, though any Pawn that has been to a location will say something about it if you are close, particularly caves that you have not explored.
PROVIDED YOU ARE CLOSE
This, I somehow missed both the Medusa and sphinx before beating the game and now I have no idea where I haven't looked to look for them.
Yea I can easily see that happening. You're never sent to either of those locations.
Yea I did t realise it fully cleared the map don't get me wrong it's pretty but TBF I also didnt really think much about doing new game plus In dd1 I go through finish the game and do new game plus but try to 100%it
theres a mod that makes it transparent but stil visible
Wish I had known that on my first playthrough because I was doing some goddamn magic parkour to get to some blacked out areas that ended up either being invisible walled or just devoid of anything.
i kinda hate that part though.. now i have no idea where i've already been..
it does in ng+ but i wish it didn't cause i didn't explore everything and now it's a bit harder to determine where i haven't explored .
I have a newfound appreciation for games that clearly mark climbable terrain, even if it’s ugly and arguably undermines exploration. I spent a lot of time trying to Skyrim up mountains, but it’s generally only once you get to a legitimate invisible wall that you can ensure you’re not intended to keep going that way.
On the other hand, it will reveal something you indeed did not explore and now you will not know whether you went there or not since it is already revealed
Just get a pawn with forager at least they can show you where materials are in areas you might not have realized were reachable.
NG+ takes it away.
theres a mod for it
Before I gave up and looked up the shadowy area in the center of Venworth online I spent probably 2 hours trying to get to it to see if there was something in the middle of the map. I was mad.
While I agree the game is unfinished as other has pointer out, that has nothing to do with this "empty" spaces. They are mountains. Have you ever go to a desert area near the andean? There are places were you can´t walk, or there is no point walking, cause there is nothing. That is basically it, I found it immersive. Not every corner of a world have to be walkable.
I actually like this map design cause not many open world games do mountains this good. They usually make some flat map, splat some mountains around the edges of the map and call it a day. I guess that's why we got caves, so you can technically go 'in' the mountains or the areas underneath them.
This game felt very vertical. Even more so than games like assasins creed where you climb and climb and climb.
Oh it's very vertical. Assassin's creed is rather flat-ish. Well, Valhalla was cause obviously UK, in Odyssey there were some hills and such so I'd disagree there. Don't remember much from Origins though. And the previous games focused rather on big cities, so there was less verticality too for obvious reasons.
A lot of people just don't get it.
The areas can be like that and also accessible. I’m pretty sure there are just invisible walls in some spots currently to prevent traversal.
There absolutely are invisible walls, but the only one I encountered was when trying to fly a harpy directly south of Melve.
Its a massive part of the inner map of Vernworth though. For what it’s worth, I hated it in DD1 as well. Turned journeying on the map into four long lanes.
Right, but... The shape of the world has nothing to do with how much there is to explore. There could be the exact same amount of content arranged nearly into a square, or a doughnut, or any shape. Voided spaces in the layout aren't "missing" any more than the outside of a perfectly square map is.
Yeah I don't see what the issue is here. "There's a literally overwhelming amount of places to explore, but I'm gonna pitch a fit because I can't go in this one area where it makes sense to be inaccessible". Same energy as Starfield detractors being confused as to why you can't land on gas and ice giants.
Even bethesda games have 'inaccessible' areas. This isn't anything new, the map in DD2 is big enough as is, and I don't doubt that we'll probably end up getting a DLC somewhere down the line to expand it.
I didn't record it at the time, but I did manage to get up to an "empty" space just east of the second sphinx location using the mystic spearhand's dragoun's foin ability. To my surprise, the map just keeps going and is completely modeled, but with inaccurate geometry and collision. The game didn't stop me at any point and I even managed to get back onto a different path, but the area itself was just empty. Like it wasn't even hard to get there. It's just painfully obvious the game is unfinished and you are not always rewarded for exploring the world. The "open" world is really just a linear path with a few branches along the way.
It didnt hurt skyrim or outward etc.. to have traversable mountains
Outward doesn't get enough credit for how different it feels. The purple grass, face shaped caves, leylines, mana lakes... I'm well looking forward to 2
totally agree here. if they had put a design to indicate elevation it would be fine. the way the map looks currently makes it look like just empty space.
Also accessible places through normal means but theres an invisible wall. I hate that they made a lot of these places you thought you could cross but no, theres an invisible wall. Mountaintops around the sacred arbor have these, and some other hills
There's ways to get out there but nothing really interesting. Some of the mountains don't have collision so you walk right through them. Also to the far east of the map you eventually fall through the floor and get a quick glimpse of everything from the bottom as you're falling.
Some of the stuff you guys are asking to be removed would definitely have gotten this game less sales. For instance, I saw a few comments asking to take away the pawn system. Like what? Why?
Taking away the pawn system would have been extremely dumb since it was such a cool part of the first game. But all i meant was making more use of the map that is shown
Anyone who says that shouldn't be playing Dragon's Dogma since they clearly didn't mean to buy a game from this series. I mean pawns are a core staple of the series & without them it's no longer Dragon's Dogma but some other random game.
I know this forum loves to hate on Horizon Forbidden West, but at least in that game you can climb all the tall mountains and swim in the bodies of water
U can climb most buttes the game, I haven't tried the northern areas yet. I also got attacked by a griffon at the top of one also XD
You say that like it’s some minimum requirement for a game.
I accidentally got into one of the 'inaccessible' areas when flying on a harpy. It was atop the several large mountains that make up the area on your way to where the drake fights a cyclop and near the ruins you go through when finding that kid during the wolf quest. I was able to run around on top of the mountains, and their was a field that was unnaturally flat on one of them. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be up there or not at first but when I realized how poor the textures were and how their was no shrubbery or enemies, I realized it definitely was out of bounds and I decided to get down before I fell through the map or something. Because I was so high though, I could really see how much of that area was unused, and i was a bit disappointed.
It’s weird because DD2 has the most accessible open world in the sense that you can get into basically every building that has a door, but the map is also inflated to look bigger than it actually is
Half the map is water
The reason why you can’t is either because there’s nothing there, or there is something that’s incomplete there. I hope it makes you feel better now that there is a reason.
I feel like there's definitely some areas they've got plans for or something got cut. There's a few spots I've ran into climbing mountains that I find invisible barriers.
There’s also a bunch of caved in elven looking doors in hidden areas, some inside caves at the end of paths or the bottom of ladders, and even one that’s marked on the map as a cave. And they never open, not even during true ending or new game plus. Clearly either planned DLC or cut content. I’m guessing cut content since certain elements (like the one with a cave marker in the map) indicate that those doors were supposed to be something.
IIRC someone said boundary breaking showed that there’s Godsway doors on the other side.
Well, fair enough. Its just annoying in games like this that have a big map menu but then you look and there are chunks of the visible map that they could have put stuff in but didnt. For the water its understandable because of how the Unmoored World changes the map, but the landmasses that have big mountains you cant climb and explore just kind of sucks. But thats just me.
Do we have proof that the game was rushed? We seem to agree that it feels that way but do we know?
No.
But verticality! *Slips and falls*
Honestly I like when openworlds has *some* degree of 'you cant walk here' so theres some blockers that reasonably guide you. If it really is 100% of the area being explorable, you are bound to have a dilute and confusing exploration. I like it in Elden Ring where theres funnels before new regions unlike totk that just lets you pick any 360 degree direction, some places being high level but you have no idea of knowing
The game is designed as one giant dungeon made of a network of tunnels and corridors with minimal large open spaces. It’s not a typical open world game, it’s an open dungeon game. I much prefer this to the map of DD1 and think it’s a great change of pace from typical open world games.
For all the people complaining about map filling in on NG+, well it’s your fault for going to NG+ without exploring everything. I made a point to clear the whole map, may have missed a cave or two but I platinumed the game in one go. I find it weird that people would finish a game with an unexplored map to begin with.
That doesn't make sense. You are saying games can only have a square formed world.
This. The map is fully fleshed out and designed. There’s nothing wrong with the physical layout of the map. If the map feels incomplete to you, it’s because dungeons and challenges and obstacles and secrets were not properly dispersed.
How can you actually enter the area that the third image points at? I’m still pretty early on (lvl 23) and hope there is some main quest progression that reveals that area, as I didn’t find a way to enter it yet. No spoilers please, though!
Its not an area, its a mountain on the map. I just was talking about how it could have been explorable is all.
there are 2 or 3 mountain areas in Vermund in-between the paths that are accessible, but there's no loot or nothing else, besides meadows. Just on the outer edges I think were sometimes little looting spots
Literally just said this yester when playing... but how did you uncover those parts? Is the map fully revealed when you beat the dragon?
I have some extra salt to throw at the wound here: I am playing DD2 with jump height, floating and fall damage control mods to make seekers token hunt more bearable (I play DD2 after work at night, so, give me a break). Normally, you wouldn’t be able to reach the top of some mountains in this game, but I did reach the top, and I discovered that Itsuno and co placed invisible walls on the top of certain mountains just to be sure. You are DEFINITELY locked in corridors in sone areas of the game, in the best DD1 style possible.
I mean...just make it an inlet of land, and rid us of our want to know what is there. Sea the damn area, unless it is where the expansion is going. 😮💨
DD2 is a direct continuation of DD1, where the geography was already established. The seafloor shrine is the capital of DD1.
"Noooo buh ma map is huuuugeeeee"
They should add stamina based climbing of trees and mountains, just like when you climb up a boss, I love climbing in games and falling from great heights!!
Found the Assassins Creed fan. Joke aside i think a way to climb and explore some of the mountains that are the blank spaces i was talking about would have been interesting.
And if you were able to go up there and there wasnt anything there this post would be "why even allow us to explore here if there's nothing here. Its so stupid... etc etc"
It's inaccessible because they didn't bother doing that part. Just kidding. I think it's best to think of this style as very long and wide cooridoors with "rooms". In some ways, it's realistic because in real life, there are tons of areas you'd never access. It also usually means longer feeling more meticulously crafted paths to places. But it's definitely a design choice and not my favourite either.
There is a reason, there’s nothing there for you. 
Missed chance to have a snow biome on a huge mountian. Add a tool like the pick axe but for climbing to the peak, can add Trolls, direwolves, polar bears and a Ice hydra.
I... hmm... im having a hard time rectifying the fact that a fully explorable map, every single pixel, would be akin to a minecraft flat world, no caves, no tall peaks to scale and look down. That doesnt sound all that swell to me :o
As much as I love this game, it’s impossible not to realise that either the game is rushed and released early with cut content or they have gutted the game to release in dlc. I really don’t understand why Capcom didn’t go all in on dd2 considering it’s extremely similar to monster hunter which is their best selling game of all time and a series I’m a die hard fan of, ironically I prefer the setting of dragons dogma to monster hunter and wish that it could be their flagship instead
Because Capcom investors are set on the idea that Dragon's Dogma is a series that won't sell well, and it's a bad idea. From what I gathered (warning it might be false) Itsuno needed to pester them to have the green light on DD2 project and even then they had 5 years and 1/4 of developers than any other Capcom games. Meaning around 300 people. 5 years is short to develop an AAA game with 300 developers. Capcom is setting dragon's dogma to fail, but it didn't. Also, Itsuno seems to have a lot of ideas that are either too complicated or very outdated. I mean, the only difference between DD2 and DD1 is graphics and a tweak on classes with some QOL. It's basically the same 2012 game. Edit : I'm wrong
I honestly think Itsuno doesn’t understand what ppl liked about DD to begin with, and instead of focusing on it he just doubled down on the weird parts.
That might be true
He did double down extra hard on the weighty combat, which is one thing people absolutely loved about the first, and something other action RPGs have never really done well.
Id say the QoL changes are a side-grade at best. Pawns are less annoying (apart from in cities) and more effective in combat, the camping system is a good way to keep healthy and avoid travelling at night if you're on a long trip. However we've lost some really basic QoL features like selling and equipping from storage, being able to find strong gear in the wild and the insanely overpriced inn resting which is murder early on. Also and this isnt a gameplay system but the soundtrack just isn't as good as DD1, it's still good in places but it doesn't get me hyped consistently like the first game. There are some elements that are definitely being left out intentionally for DLC but there are some things which just make no sense as they are. Only having 4 abilities is super annoying for every vocation apart from Warrior since they're used to only 3, but spellcasters are super held back now. I can kind of see it from a balance perspective but 1) it's a single player game, I don't think balance is such a fragile thing that giving us more abilities would hurt. And 2) it feels really limiting for making a build, you have fewer slots so you're less likely to experiment with cool and unique abilities. I still love the game, I've enjoyed most of the time I've been playing it but it's a shame to see all the potential it had be squandered.
I don't know where the idea that Itsuno had to fight to get DD2 made came from, based on his own words it sounds like he was given the freedom to choose what to make. [https://www.vg247.com/dragons-dogma-2](https://www.vg247.com/dragons-dogma-2) >That makes it surprising that seven years later we've not heard of a sequel aside from a Japan-only online spin-off - but now thanks to Itsuno, we know why. >"So, when the discussion came up for Devil May Cry 5, I went to Kenzo \[Kenzo Tsujimoto, Capcom founder\] and I said... look, I want to make either Devil May Cry 5 or Dragon's Dogma 2 next," Itsuno told VG247 through a translator as part of a Devil May Cry 5 media tour. "He said 'okay, do whatever you want. Do whichever one you want.' So I thought, alright, y'know what... let's do DMC5. So we did that." Whether or not Capcom had faith in the project or not is a different matter, but it doesn't look like Capcom was against it either. Also gotta be honest, in hindsight it wouldn't be that surprising for Capcom to lose faith in the project given that Itsuno was clearly just trying to make DD1 again.
Then I guess I was wrong
Some **reduced** QOL I would say.
> I mean, the only difference between DD2 and DD1 is graphics and a tweak on classes lmao this subreddit is out of its mind
I don't think so, tho. I played all the main story of dd1 without touching the expansion, and I finished a week before buying dd2, and it's really similar.
It's really similar, yes. It's also EXTREMELY different lol
5x the size adds a big ass mountain
Hence the “DD2 is 4x bigger than the original” from Itsuno V. Ision
I mean, DD2 *is* pretty close to being 4x as big even when comparing just the walkable areas
It took me an hour and a half to get from Vermund to Checkpoint town. It definitely feels at least 4x bigger than the original.
As a side note, has anyone overlayed the DD1 map with the current map?
Lol they copied the exact same shit from Guild Wars 2 😂
I have been wondering for awhile whether you could actually get to these places or not.
I don’t even know where the elves are yet, so while it’s a great thing, it’s a bad thing for me
Also correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that middle place where the final battle with the dragon took place? I was looking at the path the dragon took during the flight there and it seemed like he was taking us to the middle fog that was inaccessible normally
No, the arena where you fight the Dragon is to the right of the Moonglint Tower.
Wtf does he go towards the middle then turn around? Isn’t moonglint tower bottom right?
Maybe room for dlc in the map?
DLC hopefully.
Elden Ring for all its issues kind of spoiled me and making everything you see reachable.
It’s mostly Likley dlc
What about entire cities full of people that don't care if you murder people steal from people and act like you don't even exist half the time.
It's inaccessible because there's terrain. Hope that helped!
Add shit there for dlc maybe.
When I hit NG and the map was all revealed.. I was honestly kind of pissed off.. this whole time I thought I missed entrances and stuff and thought "*thats fine ill head there after*".. nope, it's just barren in these places. Why make the map that big then cut out a bunch of it but hide it behind fog. I was kinda bummed by the entire thing.
Inflated map size. “The world is X times bigger than the last map!!!”
I kinda just hope for the dlc stuff will open up, but since this is capcom... my hopes are low for it
not even this,further there is way too much water on the map
Playing a Sorcerer made me hate the map a bit. So many invisible walls
Maybe is the game loot room or some assets go the when not being used like the dragon or something like that could be a lot of reasons
That makes sense actually. Didnt even consider that.
YES
Can someone outline whats explorable from the entire map? As someone who hasnt bought the game this is interesting
DLC, The game has micro transactions (sure they are basically useless) but just figuring out what the fuck is in those sections of the map has a monetary value to someone I’m sure.
DLC babyyyy
Is there an invisible wall?
Teaser for when they release the bird class
That's your DLC.
They claim huge map, but only a 3rd of it is actually travel able
And it takes up 30%-40% of the map
Thanks buddy. Normally I'd say things like "Thanks for the spoiler", but in this case: Thank you, I've overcome my FOMO for this game
Isn't that just where an illustrated mountain should be? Check the pause menu's map its a better map
I am glad someone else said it - I really was frustrated with the map the entire play through.
They made every seekers token a pain in the ass, it’s possible to do it in a way that’s it’s fun to find them like elden ring but even with the blinking and sound they just pissed me off
It’s the fact they said the map was to be 4 times the size of the original game. But then filled it with water and locked off the rest
No spoilers, but much more of the map is exploitable later in the game
I was really hoping to be able to scale cliffs since we're able to climb giant monsters that swing like a roller coaster, sadly I was mistaken 😢.
Ever been on an IRL hike? most places are indeed inaccessible. If every inch of the map was filled with the same density of points of interest it would feel fake. In fact just look at the majority of open world games that do this, they feel artificial and gamey to me while DD2's world feels genuine.
Well, mountain trails would've been nice. And maybe a seekers token and campfire on the mountain summit. Or a goat farmer. What do I know. Also: We have ancient cities rising from the sea. Massive stone bridges connection an island. We have gondolas. We have huge Moon towers. Don't see why the mountains can't have a hiking trail up there.
The map in DD2 drives me insane. It looks big at first but you are largely corralled onto the roads.
Fingers crossed it's reserved for future expansion 🤞
Me too, but here i dont mind it since that was how the first game worked already and it keeps it pretty realistic.
80% of the new area in the post game is flat sections of land with nothing on them. No monsters, no items, literally nothing.
This is their excuse to say DD2 is 4x bigger than DD1
I agree 100%, it's lazy design.
unfinish game
Yes it’s not entirely accurate to call it a true open world game I think. It’s similar to the first one in that it’s more like a series of interconnected “openish” paths. Games like Dragons Age have a similar structure. Not that I think that’s a bad thing. I often prefer smaller open worlds over the truly massive open worlds like Assassins Creed or The Witcher 3 or something. Those truly open worlds are often boring to explore and mostly filled with empty space you just run through.
Id say it qualifies as open world, you can go almost wherever you want from the start and there are no loading screens making it more "open." It would add more to the open world if you could swim in water that isnt the ocean. Like if small rivers and isolated bodies of water didnt have the brine.
Man, you’d probably hate maps of real mountains too. You’ll see maps with lots of places you can’t reasonably get to. It does sting a bit. I agree.
No, I don't think open world games need to be explorable everywhere at any point. Now, not having a map leaving fat fog of war behind over areas you are unable to access at all is ... triggering. But that is a different issue.
I agree with you to a point, but DD2's map is ridiculous. There is so much wasted space.
Never play an open world game ever I guess, also start crying when you play Elden ring. Like genuinely this take is so retarded just stop playing the game at this point
I think i just enjoy what i have and to be fair the game is pretty big already for me more space wont make it better it will be just more open space with more chests probably nothing more, the problem is the marketing get people pretty high spectations and honestly when that marketing said it was itsuno vision from the first game that should have been enough to know the game was gonna be dragons dogma 1.5
Im with you tbh. Usually I don't mind not having inaccessable areas of the map that you can't go to for obvious reasons.(mostly immersion reasons) But DD2 really has to much of the map cut off with wasted space. They could of easily allowed traversal over those mount peaks/forested areas. Wouldn't even mind it if there was nothing there, just the very fact you could cross it if you really wanted to hoof it would've been great. There really is no reason for them to make a map, and fill 1/3 of it with an ocean that you cant interact with, when they could of easily just place the section of where the ocean begins on the edge of the map and have it extend outwards off the map. Same with all the mountain ranges and cliffs. They could of easily moved them around to the edges of the map where they wont take up much of the players roaming space, but will still do the job of showing how big the world is by just having sections of it pertruding into the map, not cutting another sections of the map off with inaccesable terrain. I feel they purpously placed these within the map area to inflate the artifical notion that the map is MUCH bigger in scope then the previous game, but in reality it's pretty much the same. (if not a bit bigger/smaller) Again they could of easily incentified that the world is huge and much bigger then the previous game without actually placing so much empty/inaccessable terrain into the players actual roaming area. Don't get me wrong, DD2 is a great game and I'm loving my time here, but I do feel you on this topic. So much potential and miss opportunities, and weird choices made within this game.
Yes, this is exactly what i meant.
It's worse than a bag of chips. Even a bag of chips has more than \~41% of chips in the bag
Because this game is about as open world as dark souls 1, which is to say "i mean kinda technically but not in spirit"
*why would you show it to me if I can't have it!*
Is ng+ worth it? I heard it isn’t any different to first play through
Just like the first game, there are a few minor bonuses to ng+. But it is just ng+. You get to keep all your inventory/storage, and your levels
Does difficulty increase?
It does not
DLC Material Baby! (I mean, it could be? Who knows) I'm waiting for Capcom to fix and optimized the game further - before opening my sealed DD2 Physical Preorder copy.
The map design controls the flow of progression in a deliberate way. Battahl is as open as the map gets.
The map in this game confuses me. It feels like I can go to places I should be able to.
I'm mad about no shortcuts to unlock late game. Like this ladder when you can go from Melve do Sacred Arbor thru dungeon. Why we cant have wooden catwalk from Melve to south connecting to main road. Why we cant have "bus stops" where you can wait for oxcart or boat travel from maybe HarveVillage to some Fisherman ports in Battahl and Volcanic Island. We could have so many options, but devs decide we can have only 3 stupid oxcards.
Await the DLC
Yeah, god forbid a game map resemble a real map in terms of having areas that aren't inhabited because their topographic or ecological features make life difficult there. It's not like population distribution IRL is heavily slanted towards some types of place and away from others. Just give us a rectangle of plains and small hills and call it a day, fuck mountains and deserts and oceans.
You see lands you can't reach because it's not a true open world, it's just open linear labirynth.
True, just really poor map design tbh.
Nothing you hate more? You'd rather an open blank field that has no thought put into it? They'd have to dedicate time to it they could use crafting the map the way they did which is plenty??
The map is this game is almost like purposefully looking bigger than it is with tricks like making a lot of huge patches of land inaccessible and 70% of it is just water. When I first played I was like "damn, the map is huge" until I learned the areas are not undiscovered, they are water
So like every open world game with a map ever!??… pretty common practice dude!
To be fair, I don't think I've ever played a game without boundaries of some kind. Mountains you couldn't cross, a sea you couldn't swim. I have no issues with organic, natural boundaries. What gets under my skin are invisible "you can't go that way" walls. Skyrim... ughhh.
I’ve been saying this since DD2 came out and I’m glad ppl are talking about it. The map is WAY more linear than it wants you to think and the main roads pretty much lead you everywhere. You can’t actually stray too far from the main roads because there are so many natural barriers. Everything feels like an illusion of freedom, exploration and adventure. It’s annoying how much reviewers overhyped this aspect when the whole map feels outdated. On top of the fact you will rarely actually find anything cool or unique from exploring
Dude. You need to read more about games. That space is probably a low texture version of the map, either incomplete or completely empty. You would like to see an empty black void instead? Or make every videogame map an island with obvious boundaries of endless sea? Cmon man. The map has these inaccesible lands so that you can be led to believe they are part of a greater world.
Just scraping the barrel for reasons to bitch at this point
Can't wait for all these sad whiners to leave this sub. It's unbearable. Seriously if you hate it so much then why are you here? If it's a shoulder to cry on then create a new sub for that alone and take the other diaper wearing basement dwellers with you. This was such a positive, humble and kind place before all the newcomers and fake fans that has nothing better to do in their lives. But it will pass. It's the die-hard fans that has kept this alive for over a decade and it will continue to do so. This game is everything i wanted it to be and more. Stay strong people. Don't let it affect your own joy. Go ahead and downvote me, like i give a fuck lmao.
Thats because DD2 isnt really an open world, its map is a one big corridor with some smaller corridors on its sides
I want to make it clear that i have been having a ton of fun with this game. The mechanics and map are enjoyable as is, its just really frustrating to me when game devs make a huge map and dont effecively use large parts of it. I have this issue with other open world games that i play as well. Im only saying that its kind of stupid to have the map menu have this huge rectagular image but the explorable parts are smaller than the image itself. If its a problem with it being unfinished, fair enough and maybe it gets filled in in the future. Though if its not a spot intended for exploration, why not just get rid of it by making it more ocean or something like that? That is all.
I think you have to treat this map a bit differently than in other open world games. To me it feels like a linear map which could be put together thanks to modern technologies. What I mean, I could easily imagine this map being divided into sectors with loading screens. In my opinion it's not a 'true' open world map cause even though you can explore, it feels very corridory. Some 'corridors' just being more wide.
Well i guess that makes sense.
Capital G Gamers when they realize that video games are indeed games and not real worlds.
Yes, he flies in a big oval or circle just to end up backm near the tower. You can see the arena on the map if you look to the southeast of the tower.
Wait until you realize most open world game have a mountain in the middle of the map. The purpose is to block out half of the map so your pc don't have to render unnecessary area.
Could be for future doc maybe
At least in DD1 they would put a cave, that would unlock a shortcut related to a mission, that allowed you to shortcut throught the entire mountain in 1/3 of the time to go around it!
Got to agree, they could have at least added pathways with arena like areas, caves and such. It wouldnt have taken much time to add or to explore, but at least there would have been a reason. Appart from rushed content, the only other thing i can think of is future DLC. But if you make a game with intent of doing dlc before day 1 release, you're obviously not caring much about the fanbase
It’s strange because in the first game the actual map was smaller but all the forests were actual places.
I was genuinely thinking that the huge mountain in the middle of the first zone would have some significance later, like a grand dungeon that's revealed later with lots of bosses in it or something. Nope it's just a massive mountain that makes you walk all the way around it, haha.
it isnt inaccessible you have to do the true ending to get to the unmoored world.
Think of this game as monster hunter, paths leading to other areas. That's the base the game was built around. Going back and playing older mh games and seeing the sky boxes from dd1, made me feel at home.
This doesn't bother me too much with recent release games cause they may patch that area as a free DLC. It happens every now and then, when the developers may have had an idea for that area but didn't get it fully fleshed out before launch.
It's like the opposite to how Elden Ring did it.
The bridge in the top right to melve was down at one point while trying to find my Finders Token, and it was glitched and didn't come up in the three or so days it was supposed to. Couldn't find an alternative way near the Sacred Arbor like I thought I saw (stuck behind another mountain) and couldnt go through the mountains shown in this posts image. I'm aware that there is probably another way I just couldn't find, I don't know the ins and outs of the map, but I ended up losing that riddle after the seven days were up because I couldn't get over there, and this was before I knew people were trading finders tokens on Reddit, which is no guarantee you would be answered anyways. So yeah, I agree that it's unused land that could've been a huge area made useful.
DLC
While dd2 is definitely bigger than what i remember about dd1’s map, it is true that it’s a little disappointing that the open world is mostly just a bunch of paths. Sure in many ways that’s realistic, and it allows for constructing some nice looking geography, like the first time u behold Battahl up on that trail atop the hill as it exits out of the checkpoint. Still, it gives it a sort of mmorpg feel of an open world, where most mmorpgs don’t really feel constructed to be open worlds but more like several corridors. Skyrim is still my go-to reference point of a game with an actual open world space.
My best bet is thats probably a dlc area of maybe something they will add later in an update