When Capcom told IGN that performance issues with the PC version of Dragon's Dogma 2 were likely due to how much CPU the game's more than 1000 unique NPCs demand, NPCs which can be killed off permanently, they probably should have anticipated what was always going to happen next. The community, wasting no time, has already begun to cobble together a kill list.
Now, to be clear, there doesn't appear to be any hard evidence we could find of verifiable frame rate gains on PC, let alone on PS5, by engaging in this kind of mass murder yet. We imagine once someone manages to off the entire list of NPCs deemed unnecessary, a literal waste of resources, we'll have a clearer picture of the situation. But if you want to get in on the ground floor, a thread on the Dragon's Dogma subreddit has cropped up to point you in the right direction.
The poster of the top-rated comment there, r34_nuxia, claims to have gained some 15+ frames by murdering any non-shopkeeper NPCs, and all of the game's guards. After all, who will be left alive for them to protect? Chillingly, they went on to outline their absolutist manifesto and just how far they'd be willing to go for a few more precious, precious frames: "If we're aiming for the best performance, then [we] can't optimize just the men, but the women and children, too."
This newfound callousness towards Dragon's Dogma 2's NPCs appears to be catching on, as genocidal memes quickly began to spring up and proliferate. Far be it for us to tell you what to do in your game, but we think the game's incredibly dynamic open world offers an unmatched sense of adventure, and the fact that murder on such a mass scale is possible is further proof. Read our onging thoughts in our review, and enjoy a small sampling of memes below.