In an El33tonline-attended gamescom presentation for Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma, the game’s producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi was present to take us through the fantasy action RPG’s many features and provide a lot more clarity on what the game really is, as well as showcase what kind of gameplay we can expect while explaining why ‘Pawns’ are so important and intriguing.

When I asked about the inspiration behind the themes of Dragon’s Dogma, Kobayashi excitedly told me that game director Hideaki Itsuno was a big fan of high fantasy as a child, and so books such as Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones, as well as Dungeons and Dragons handbooks (that tell players about the menagerie of monsters that inhabit the world of D&D) were great inspirations for Dragon’s Dogma. This is definitely evident in the way the world and characters look, as well as the enemies and creatures included – everything from small impish critters and soaring griffins to immense ogres and lion-headed chimeras are present in a harshly realistic world.

The other goal for Capcom in producing Dragon’s Dogma was to provide players with freedom and complete control over their own paths in the game, and as the main protagonist, the ‘Arisen,’ you’ll be able to design and customise your character and choose a specific career, or class, but Kobayashi warns that everything you do in Dragon’s Dogma affects the story and ultimate outcome – for every action, there is a reaction – and even your choice of character will impact the narrative which will result in one of many multiple endings unfolding during the game.

Another aspect of Dragon’s Dogma that has a major impact on the story are the ‘Pawns,’ and these very interesting characters became the focus of our demo. In short, a Pawn is another non-playable character that will join you on your journey through the game, fighting with you, healing you and generally contributing actions and assistance to further your progress and help in battle.

The odd (and kind of creepy) thing about Pawns is that, while they may appear to be human, they are in fact immortal, otherworldly beings that never die and never age. The can become exhausted in combat and once they have been defeated in this way, they will return to a place called ‘The Rift,’ a mysterious place that I’ll explain in a bit.

To begin with, you’ll gain a single Pawn on your journey who will act as the ‘main Pawn,’ pledging its allegiance to you and you alone, only ever obeying your commands – reasons for which, we’re assured, will become apparent during the game. Like the protagonist, you’ll be able to customise this main Pawn however you like, giving it a unique appearance and career, which again, will have ramifications on the story. If you’re a fighter, for example, it would be wise to choose a career for your Pawn that complements your own career and abilities, like a Mage character to cast spells.

With this configuration, you would be free to openly attack enemies with melee and ranged bow skills while your Pawn rustles up an enchantment to cast a spell, for example. As an interesting aside, there is apparently no magic point system in Dragon’s Dogma, but instead if you want to cast a powerful spell, it will take time for you or your Pawn to summon the energy to rain fireballs or lightning down on your foes, so you’ll need to have characters with careers that balance out your fighting unit.

So, if Pawns aren’t human, where do they really come from? According to a trailer we were shown, Pawns seems to congregate in an eerie limbo-esque underworld known as ‘The Rift,’ accessed through a rune-like boulder called the Rim Stone. It’s in The Rift that players will recruit two additional Pawns, or support Pawns, chosen from six different locations in Dragon’s Dogma, each of whom is imbued with the skills of one of six different classes. While your main Pawn will stay with your from the beginning of the game to the very end, these support Pawns can be swapped in and out and already have their own unique skillset.

Kobayashi recommends choosing support Pawns that further help to balance your group and match your own playstyle, while also selecting the best and most useful Pawns for a given situation.

How does The Rift world work, then, and how and why do Pawns travel back and forth to The Rift? Kobayashi insists that Dragon’s Dogma is a singleplayer focused game to ensure the developers created a game of the absolute highest quality – any focus on multiplayer or co-operative play would have diluted that experience, he says. This is why the Pawn system was introduced and to fill in any singleplayer ‘loneliness’ that might crop up during your escapades across the vast fantasy world of the game.

To add extra depth to the Pawns, The Rift world in Dragon’s Dogma will act as a hub for a ‘rental’ system of sorts, accessible over Xbox LIVE or the PlayStation Network. While the developers have already included hundreds of different support Pawns for you to use even if you’re not connected to the internet, if you are connected you’ll be able to recruit Pawns from other people’s games who have fought alongside other players around the world. You yourself will be able to place Pawns in this Rift world online, too.

The main advantage of this system is that, if you recruit a Pawn that has been put online by another player, chances are that this Pawn will have gained experience while in that other player’s game – experience that can be very valuable to you in your game. For example, if a Pawn recruited online has been in a fight with a griffin, that Pawn will automatically know that animal’s weakness and roll that knowledge into your game. Similarly, if an online Pawn has already traversed an area of Dragon’s Dogma, you’ll benefit from that Pawn’s knowledge of that dungeon or environment.

In this way, Pawns effortlessly enrich your own combat and encounters in Dragon’s Dogma with their acquired skills and knowledge, almost acting as intelligent players would do if they were helping you out in a fight online.

If you put a Pawn of your own online, you won’t lose it, but if another player decides to use it in their game it will automatically gain experience and knowledge as that player wades into battle and explores the world, and as an added benefit, you’ll gain special Rim Crystals which are used to rent and buy higher and higher level Pawns. Hundreds of players can use the same Pawn simultaneously which means more Rim Crystals for you, and more experience for the Pawn, resulting in a stronger and more useful character.

This addition of the Pawn system to the action RPG genre has me incredibly intrigued by the possibilities that the game presents, and combined with the massive and super detailed open-world, what looks to be intense, white-knuckle combat encounters as well as promises of cause and effect gameplay, fans of high fantasy, adventures and exploration would do well to look forward to Dragon’s Dogma.

From what I saw, Capcom’s unique and fervent approach to the genre seems to have paid off handsomely.

Dragon’s Dogma releases on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in early 2012.

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