How To Play Dragon's Dogma Online From Outside Of Japan

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With the announcement that Dragon’s Dogma Online may one day be brought west possibly, if that’s what the person who made the quote even meant, I decided that enough was enough. I was going to try the game out. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as easy as downloading the game, loading it up, and playing it, so I’ve written this guide in hopes of helping those of you who want to play, but can’t figure it all out, set the game up.

It is important to note up front that Dragon’s Dogma Online is IP blocked. If you are not willing to set up and use a VPN, then you may as well stop reading here so as not to waste your time. There is no way around it; a VPN is absolutely necessary.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s proceed to the part where I tell you how to set everything up.

Capcom Online Games Account Creation

In order to play Dragon’s Dogma, you must have a Capcom Online Games account. Simply click here to head to the registration form and fill it out. As with most registration forms, it is fairly straightforward. Those of you using Google Chrome will be able to auto-translate the page, making filling out the form fairly easy, but for those of you that don’t use Google Chrome, I have included an image of the registration form with everything translated below.

Once you have filled out and submitted the registration form, your randomly generated Capcom Online Games ID will be shown to you as follows. You will need this ID in order to play the game. It will be sent to you in an email, as well, but I definitely recommend writing it down somewhere—just in case you lose said email.

Choosing a VPN

You have officially gone as far as you can without a VPN. At this point, you must ensure that you have downloaded and installed a VPN that offers a server in Japan. I have tested both VyprVPN (3 day free trial available) and ExpressVPN, and I can confirm that both work. Using VyprVPN, I had a maximum download speed of around 2.7 MB/s when downloading the full game through the launcher and, all told, the download took between ten and twelve hours. That said, my ping sits around 200 ms and I have three green bars on the in-game connection indicator almost all of the time.

I have not tested ExpressVPN's download speeds, but, while it did get me into the game and playing, my ping was around 250 and the game threw several error messages that were not thrown when I used VyprVPN. That being said, I felt that the in-game latency was much more stable than when I used VyprVPN, having experienced far fewer lag spikes.

Unfortunately for those of you who use Private Internet Access, it will not work. If you attempt to load up the launcher with Private Internet Access running, an error message intended to warn you that your connection is too slow will appear and, once confirmed, the launcher will restart. If you don’t close it manually, it will be stuck in an endless loop. I’ve included an image of what the error below.

For a free alternative to the VPNs I’ve mentioned, be sure to check out our guide to getting around IP blocks by using the SoftEther client.

Downloading and Installing the Dragon’s Dogma Online Launcher

Oddly, while you can reach the official Dragon’s Dogma Online website without the use of a VPN, you need to be connected to a VPN in order to download the game. Once you have your VPN running, head to the official website and click the button highlighted below.

The actual setup process is fairly simple. Simply load up the installer and keep pressing the Next button—the one that has “(N)” on it—until you have completed the installation. If you want to install Dragon’s Dogma Online to a non-standard folder, simply input your folder of choice once the familiar prompt is displayed. My folder is currently sitting at approximately 27 GB, so keep that in mind when choosing an install location.

If you don't want to download the entire game through the VPN (can be slow) you can try to download the full client elsewhere (/r/dragonsdogmaonline usually has a torrent/mega link to the latest client)

Once the game has been installed, make sure your VPN is on and connected to a Japanese server then load up the launcher. If you make it to the following screen, everything should be working and you should be able to play.

However, if you see the following image, it means that your VPN isn’t working, as it is a notification that you cannot play the game at this time. Ensure that your VPN is on and that you are connected to the correct server, then try again. If it does not work after repeated attempts, you may have to try another VPN.

Some users have reported that there is a way to disconnect from your VPN once you have made it into the game and continue playing without it. I have not personally tried to use this method, but it is noted that it will only work once you have, at the very least, made it to character selection. You will still need a VPN to be able to use the launcher.

Installing the English Patch

You can download the English patch here. Once you have it downloaded, simply unzip it—each patch is released as a .7z file, so I would recommend using 7-Zip—and copy-paste the contents into your Dragon’s Dogma Online folder. I recommend making a backup, just in case something goes wrong. Not every version of the English patch works with every version of the game and you run the risk of breaking something if you use an older version of the patch with a newer version of the game. That being said, as of this writing, the latest version of the English patch was made for Dragon’s Dogma Online patch version 02000010 and I can confirm that it works with patch version 02000011.

You can always check for a more recent version of the patch by looking through the creator’s Reddit post history.

Important Notes

Now that you—hopefully—have Dragon’s Dogma Online up and running, here are some important notes about the game.

  • I highly recommend downloading the Google Translate app for either Android or iOS. The English translation runs out fairly quickly in terms of quests. By the time you reach the third main quest or so, dialogue will no longer be translated. By level 10 or so, you will start to notice quest objectives that have yet to be translated. Similarly, very few of the tutorial messages are translated as of yet. The Google Translate app will allow you to quickly translate any untranslated text you may come across.
  • You will be playing alone until somewhere around level 8 or 10. You can’t invite people to your party or be invited to their party until you have unlocked your first pawn and completed Seneca’s quest that teaches you about the Lestania News.
  • The game is heavily instanced and the way the game shares progress is odd. When in a party, everyone in the party enters the party leader’s personal instance. While you can complete every type of quest—Area, Personal, and World—in another person’s instance of the world, you will be required to return to your own instance in order to increase Area levels.

And that should be it! If you have any questions or feel I’ve missed something, feel free to leave a comment.

I've been playing MMOs since back in the day when my only option was to play Clan Lord on the family Mac. Since then, I've played too many MMOs to count. I generally play niche, sometimes even bizarre, MMOs and I've probably logged the most hours in Linkrealms prior to its current iteration. Currently bouncing between a few games.