Capcom has confirmed that a hard mode is in development for Dragon's Dogma 2, one of the most persistently requested additions to the 2024 action RPG since it shipped. The confirmation came on July 31 in a Q&A with director Kento Kinoshita and producer Naoto Oyama, posted to the official Steam page for Dark Arisen, the expanded edition of the game due later this year.
Asked about the difficulty of the expansion content, Kinoshita said the team is "working on a hard mode that will provide a satisfying challenge for seasoned players whose stats have reached, or are approaching, the level cap." He added that the new content is being designed with a greater sense of challenge than the main game.
Beyond that, details are thin. Capcom had previously gone no further than saying hard mode was something it would consider for Dark Arisen, and confirmation that the feature is real has not been accompanied by much else. Oyama said a release window would be shared later, which leaves open whether hard mode ships alongside Dark Arisen or after it. Kinoshita’s answer also did not make clear whether the mode will apply to the base game, to Dark Arisen’s new expansion content, or to both.
Polygon notes there is a more optimistic reading of the deferred window: releasing hard mode ahead of Dark Arisen would give players a way to prepare for the harder expansion content. Capcom has not indicated which way it intends to go.
Dark Arisen bundles quality-of-life work and new story content into the original game. Capcom has already announced changes to two of its more contentious systems, Dragonsplague and fast travel. The headline addition is a new region, Norgan, and the Forsaken Dominion storyline that plays out there.
Dragon's Dogma 2: Dark Arisen launches Oct. 9, 2026 for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X/S.
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