Dragon’s Dogma 2, the long awaited sequel to Capcom’s fantasy adventure is currently (at the time of writing), sitting with a “Mostly Negative” overall review score. The reason? Last minute Denuvo, anti-cheat, and premium currency, all in a SINGLE-PLAYER game.

Fans weren’t expecting the sheer amount of paid content for the game, especially given that it’s single-player and any cosmetics or gear can’t really be shown off. However even more egregious is the items that provide a tangible benefit to the player, making the game easier and more convenient.

Previously, we reported on how the director for Dragon’s Dogma 2 considered fast-travel to be “boring“, so most long-distance travel is done via wagons with a chance for random encounters. Well guess what? For $2.99 you can buy a “Port Crystal” which allows you to teleport to a location you set it at using a Ferrystone. To their credit, Capcom makes it clear on the store page that Port Crystals are attainable in game but it’s not a great look. One Steam reviewer puts it succinctly:

When you go around saying that inconvencing the quick travel aspect is a design choice and then you put Portcrystals as a SUPER CONVENIENT dlc, you can’t expect people to respect your choice or to take you seriosuly. EVER.

Let’s look even deeper, $1.99 for a character re-customization token. $0.99 for a consumable “Escape from gaol!” key, because nothing says immersion like swiping your credit card to get out of jail in a fantasy video game.

There’s even “Rift Crystals”, a currency that can be acquired in-game but if you want you can buy 2500 of them for $4.99. So far all of the items have the disclaimer of “attainable in-game”, but it’s unclear just how rare or difficult to acquire these items are.

To add onto it, Capcom kept the Denuvo DRM on Dragon’s Dogma 2, despite constant consumer complaints about the program which can allegedly negatively impact game performance due to its resource-usage.