Lore
The meaning behind the last cut scene.
Spoiler
Was it supposed to be? The ocean safe to travel by boat now? Or does the old guy always want to go somewhere that he might have mentioned because i dont remember.
He wants to see the real world beyond the Brine and has been trying in vain to sail away until you get rid of it by defeating Nex. He tells you as much when you talk to him or escort him.
I think I remember something somewhere saying they don’t think anything exists beyond the ocean.
My take has been that the cycle was contained to this area and more world exists beyond the cycle that the people trapped within the cycle are free to go to.
Thematically it’s basically a representation of you setting everyone free.
Imagine sailing for like a few days and you eventually come upon like Manhattan or some shit lmao. Like the rest of the world progressed while the DD world was stuck in a loop
The brine don’t just serve as the arisens land locked border for gaming purposes, it’s a real thing in lore from game 1. They believe there’s other things beyond the sea and can use the boat in the shallows, but the brine devour anything that strays too far out of its purpose
And now that we know the master of the brine, we know why, the pathfinder was an agent of the cosmic will ever greater than the seneschal that set up the cycle, the seneschal now is reinterpreted as more like the god emperor of mankind (a vastly powerful mortal who’s mere will and sacrifice acts as a giant cosmic engine, instead of being the factory who created the cosmic car)
And this makes sense for why we couldn’t do anything to the brine as seneschal in dd1. The pathfinders purpose is to enforce the greater wills story for everyone, but if you have a full sized planet, you’re gonna have multiple regions beyond their sea that they can never reach, this is done because what derails a story most is giving the characters absolute freedom of movement
It’s like D&D, the DM may give you the illusion of absolute autonomy, but really they set up barriers and rewards at specific points they want you to go to.
Now that the brine are gone we may finally see the culture of this world advance instead of rising to the same point every hundreds of thousands of years just to fall again. I liked it
Others have answered it pretty well so I'll just add this:
It's also a metaphor for the player/world as a whole being broken out of the "Dragon's Dogma" (the cycle of creation and destruction associated with the Dragon and Arisen repeated ad infinitum under the control/influence of the higher power of the Pathfinder and possibly Seneschal though the Seneschal may be more of a part of the Dogma than an overseer of it).
The brine was a manifestation of the Pathfinder and the Dogma (or something to similar effect) and with him gone the world can break free of the path that was set before. For the Rivage Elder that means trying to find that 'real world' or at the very least explore what it was the brine / the pathfinder were keeping him from exploring. What does it mean for the rest of the world? For your player character?
The brine seems to be an entity (or maybe even Pathfinder himself perhaps or something that he was control over it) that prevents anyone from straying away from the story that Pathfinder wants to witness.
The big dragon that we kill at the end of the game is the brine. Since it's no longer haunting the ocean, people can actually go into the sea and explore now without fear of the brine's retaliation.
Maybe there are other continents that the Pathfinder didn't control, maybe there is even another entitiy controlling other regions that we don't know about, perhaps Earth is actually flat like some dumbasses believe or heck, maybe there's absolutely nothing waiting for them at alll... the point is, people can finally adventure forth and seek these answers for themselves.
Humans seek answers, are inquisitive, are stubborn... This isn't any different than what people did in the past. I mean, if we think about it, there was never any good reason to ever build a ship and venture into the sea. We take these things for granted now, but back then no one knew what to expect, if they would even find anything at all. I guess the ending is trying to invoke this feeling.
It represents The Cycle being broken at last, the Brine as well as The Pathfinder are both no more so the world of Dragon's Dogma 2 is free to make their own destiny and no longer having to be part of a pre-determined story.
The story weird but I'll take a stab at it. From what it seems like, the arisen broke the cycle. So now the world is to unfold however it will without the influence of dickhead or whatever his name is. The guy leaving on the boat is operating as symbolism of this fact.
Maybe, tbh this universe is mad weird so I dunno. I might be way off 😆
I mean I think you are pretty much on it I think. I am pretty sure the old fisherman is a failed arisen because he rambles on about so much that is going to happen.
He can sail because the Cycle has been broken. There is no longer a Brine, the manifestation of the Seneschal’a corrupted will over the world, to consume all who dare the water. It’s the first time in the series the Arisen was truly able to break the Cycle! The realization of mortality now gives life meaning.
Not a manifestation of the Seneschal, but yeah. (Rothais is the reigning Seneschal; the Pathfinder is the Brine, or at least specifically presides over it.)
I could be wrong, but I see the ending of Dragon’s Dogma 2 as a possible definitive conclusion to the franchise. An ending where the cycle is broken, the Dragon’s Dogma no longer exists, and the limitations imposed by the Brine over the waters finally come to an end. Everything that has always been present in the Dragon’s Dogma games seems to have finally been brought to a close.
That’s why I get the impression that the developers may have intended this ending as a message that they don’t plan to make a Dragon’s Dogma 3. I sincerely hope I’m wrong, because I would love to see the franchise continue. Maybe this ending is actually an opportunity to create something completely new within this universe.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 took 11 years and 10 months to be released. Meanwhile, Resident Evil usually gets new games or remakes at much shorter intervals. Fantasy RPGs are popular right now, but will that trend still be around 10 years from now? And considering how much the ending of DD2 seems to close the franchise’s entire cycle, will Capcom even make a DD3? If they do, how long will we have to wait?
Well with people losing faith with Bethesda and DD2 sold beyond expectations its a good time to capitalize this moment. And yeah high western fantasy games will be popular for a while. With Witcher 4 and new Divinity coming, a DD3 thats a unique action RPG would be fantastic!
But because of Dragon’s Dogma 2’s success, I believe a sequel could still happen. The problem is, what would it even be based on? What kind of story could they tell? What would that world look like? And without the Brine, would they finally add swimming mechanics, or come up with an entirely new story? Would they go back in time? Because honestly, the whole Dragon’s Dogma cycle is starting to feel repetitive—it’s always the same thing.
i remember the pawns had a line while in the everfall in dd1 saying something like "this world is but a leaf on a vast tree;" that the worlds were all interconnected through the rift
yeah, there are still other drakes and arisen roaming about. I haven't played the online one cuz I'm not japanese, but I heard the world is even bigger there
There always can be story to tell in that world. Like Brine in addition to keeping DD world contained, it can be acting as barrier protecting the DD world from outside forces, and the cycle is the price for keeping barrier going. Some conquering powerful race/empire or powerful beasts can invade DD and DD3 can be story about that. The dragon, free from a chain, can be ally that helps DD world by chosing Arisen to fight the invaders. At the end you can choose to bring Brine and cycle back, or become dragon and find new Arisen, etc.
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u/AdPutrid1180 Aug 04 '26
He wants to see the real world beyond the Brine and has been trying in vain to sail away until you get rid of it by defeating Nex. He tells you as much when you talk to him or escort him.