In January, Dragon’s Dogma 2 director Hideaki Itsuno made his personal opinions about easy fast travel commutes very clear. Players familiar with the original Dragon’s Dogma remember shilling out thousands of gold for Ferrystones in an expensive effort to give their feet a rest. Unsurprisingly, tracking down these mythical items—or paying top dollar for them—is still very much a thing in the sequel.
Sure, traveling by foot opens up opportunities to stumble on quests, find treasure or useful materials, or get absolutely smoked by a Griffin with zero warning because of your underleveled pawns. But sometimes, you’ve only got an hour to play before your dinner plans or bedtime and you’d like to get that annoying quest turned in pronto. Thankfully, Dragon’s Dogma 2 introduces a second form of fast travel—though calling it ‘fast’ is a bit of a misnomer.
Take a scenic ox cart ride
Using an ox cart is the cheapest and most common way to quickly travel from place to place in Dragon's Dogma 2. These bumbling vehicles connect all major settlements you’ve discovered. You first gain access to use a couple of ox carts freely upon your arrival in Vernworth, either to Melve via its north gate, or the Checkpoint Rest Town via the west gate.
You’ll sometimes see an ox cart rambling past as you’re out exploring. Feel free to jump in for a quick escape back to a safe settlement. If you want to summon an ox cart, you can find a bell near the gates to most towns, and interacting with them will pass the time until a cart is ready to leave.
Either chat with the driver or sit in the back to start your journey, which usually costs between one and three hundred gold, and then doze off at your leisure. You can’t choose where you go, either—this isn’t a fantastical Uber situation. The driver will let you know if you're lucky enough to reach your destination.
But not at night (and you might get attacked)
The inclusion of oxcarts as an added fast travel option is welcome, but they have their limitations. Ox carts don’t travel at night, and traveling via this new method isn’t instantaneous—it can take half a day or longer to reach your final destination. You can choose to take a snooze to pass some time, but if you’re trying to reach a timed quest, it’s possible that you won’t make it as quickly as you should.
To make things worse, ox carts are frequently attacked by monsters out in the world, and no, you can’t just sleep through a battle. You’ll need to disembark and slaughter your foes before getting back on track. If the beast is big and bad enough, it can destroy your ox cart entirely, forcing you to hoof it the rest of the way.
Go Ferrystone shopping and attune to Portcrystals
Many settlements in Dragon’s Dogma 2 have shiny purple beacons called Portcrystals. These are permanent fast travel points and must be activated before they can be used—simply approach one in order to unlock it.
Attuning to these crystals doesn’t mean you can open your map and start teleporting around willy-nilly. A one-time-use item called a Ferrystone is required to fast travel, and these rare and expensive items aren’t found in any large quantity until later in the game. Ferrystones come in handy when aiming to complete time-sensitive quests.
The easiest way to snag your first Ferrystone is at Philbert’s Sundries in Vernworth, though it’ll set you back a cool 10,000g. The good news, however, is that Philbert restocks his Ferrystone every three days, and this might be the case for other merchants with them, too. Finding a Seeker’s Token and turning it into the Vocation Guild in the city will also unlock one of these handy items.
Track down portable Portcrystals for luxury fast travel
The Cadillac of Dragon’s Dogma 2 fast travel comes in the form of portable Portcrystals. These extremely rare reusable items allow you to place a fast travel marker anywhere on your map, and these can be moved at any time. You can only place 10 at once, but finding that many may prove a formidable challenge anyway.
To help you begin your portable Portcrystal journey, chat with the elf, Glyndwr, hanging out near Roderick’s Smithy in Vernworth. Helping him will trigger a series of quests that leads you to a hidden elf village. Completing the lengthy chain earns you your very first Portcrystal. You can also get one via the main story for helping Captain Brant complete his quests.
Unfortunately, you’ll still need Ferrystones to make use of these beacons, but it’s something to aspire to if you’re after ease of movement, or have a quest that requires frequent revisits to the same location.
Given how much emphasis Itsuno and his team put on making the world alive and ever-evolving, using your own two legs the majority of the time seems like the best option for getting around. Convenience isn’t the name of this Capcom game.
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