Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dragonsplague Explained

Having spent dozens of hours playing Dragon's Dogma 2, we've become enamoured with the game's surprisingly hardcore take on the classic ARPG formula. Sure, it's pretty punishing on your hardware, and no, it doesn't work on the Steam Deck, but darn is it fun to play. That is, it will be until the game alerts you about a disease known as 'Dragonsplague'. Dragon's Dogma 2's Dragonsplague is one of the most remarkably hardcore RPG mechanics we've ever seen, bar none, to the point that we're surprised the mechanic made its way into a modern AAA game.

Dragonsplague is an appropriately ominous-sounding disease that affects Pawn NPCs - both your own main Pawn and the ones you can hire via the Rift. Pawns get Dragonsplague by fighting with Dragons and Drakes, and the disease turns them into a veritable nuke that will - if not handheld correctly - kill all the common NPCs of a town the infected Pawn rests in. This is not a joke: Dragonsplague will wipe your cities clean, including the capital of Vernworth. Players have lost hundreds of NPCs to Dragonsplague, and though this does mean you'll get better FPS in the city that's been wiped out, it's not a good thing at all.

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Dragonsplague in Dragon's Dogma 2: How to Deal With It?

First things first, as we said before, Pawns only get Dragonsplague from fighting actual Dragons and Drakes, the latter being the most common of these creatures you'll encounter. You might think that avoiding dragonkin would preclude your Pawns from contracting the disease, but Pawns can infect other Pawns via the Rift, so the whole thing is almost entirely unavoidable and you will need to know how to deal with it on time.

Here's a quick fact sheet about Dragonsplague:

• It's irreversible
• Easy to miss as it doesn't pop up in the Pawns' status menu, check out the signs/symptoms below
• Cannot save scum out of the issue due to there only being one save game in Dragon's Dogma 2
• You still can access quest-giver NPCs via the Morgue (through Wakestones) and some other means
• Essentially uncurable

As for the symptoms that your Pawns are infected with Dragonsplague:

• Red pulsating eyes, like those of a dragonkin creature
• Propensity to disregard or outright argue against the Arisen's commands
• Headaches and other strange behaviour

In other words, you want to keep helmets off your Pawns' heads and generally keep a close eye on how they're behaving. If you spot one of them doing weird things, you're going to want to dismiss them if they're a hired Pawn, or kill them if they're your main Pawn. The community has discovered that the best way to go about doing this is to toss them from high up or, preferably, into Brine-infested waters. Doing so will clear up Dragonsplague by the time you revive your Pawn, so it's not a huge issue if you spot it early enough.

The silver lining is that you will get a pop-up that explains some of the Dragonsplague's mechanics the first time your Pawn(s) contract it, so be on the lookout for that. Good luck!

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