In Crimson Desert, you follow the adventures of Cliff, the leader of a sort of imaginary peacekeeping force known as the Greymanes, who help protect the country of Pailune. But after an ambush, the company disperses, and Cliff is killed, only to be resurrected by supernatural beings and set on a path to save the world from dark forces.
The Crimson Desert is a gorgeous fantasy world to explore, filled with fascinating little cultures and amazing scenery – from a clockwork city where mechanical creatures tend nearby farms, to a labyrinth of enigmatic ruins floating in the sky. Crimson Desert is a visual and technical marvel at every turn, a beautifully realized world from a pure aesthetic point of view. The entire world is presented as one space, and you can see every inch of it from virtually any high point. It’s breathtaking. But the first big downside that becomes apparent right off the bat is that the game doesn’t have any story to tell or any major theme to tell.
I can’t think of a better way to describe the main story of Crimson Desert except that it’s just a mess. The plot fluctuates from tedious to occasionally downright nonsensical, more focused on providing a sense of spectacle and pomp than anything else. But it also clearly wants these big emotional moments that require there to be some kind of payoff that just isn’t there. The best way to describe it is like you watched a “Game of Thrones Best Moments” compilation on YouTube. So you get all these admittedly cool sequences and big fantasy set pieces, but without any support of actual character development and depth. This also applies to the main character, Cliff himself, who feels just one step removed from the silent hero. This means that despite the beauty of the world, there is nothing that keeps you engaged in it or makes you really care about the work you are doing.
The one exception here is reuniting all the Greymanes, where the only emotional center of the game lies. Watching your camp come together and grow is undeniably satisfying, and there are some worthwhile moments of bonding between Cliff and his allies. But the game makes all this optional about a third of the way through – meaning you can miss most of it.
You’ll probably see a lot of comparisons between Crimson Desert, Breath of the Wild, and Dragon’s Dogma. The inspiration from those two giants of open-world games is clear, as Crimson Desert has a minimalist approach to everything. There are very few tutorials that require you to learn everything through experimentation and practice. There is no fast travel immediately available in the game, instead you need to discover fast travel points through exploration. And there’s a heavy focus on puzzle-solving using your myriad skills.
There are so many different features and mechanics in Crimson Desert that there is no way I can properly describe everything. This is a game that is everything it wants to be, the textbook definition of an open world. While rebuilding Greymanes you have base construction and troop management. It features intense melee combat that also integrates absurd wrestling moves. Realistic physics and intricate Zelda-esque puzzles scattered throughout the world. There are hundreds of small quests to tackle and stories to discover. Uncover dynamic relationship systems where you can connect with animals and NPCs. And there is also dragon riding here.
There are a ton of things to see and do in the Crimson Desert. But there’s a real sense of discovery hidden in the fabric of the world that’s incredibly compelling. The quiet moments when I wandered the lands of Pywel were, by far, my favourites. While searching for a sentient tree with a hat I needed to steal for some magical creatures. Or running into a Spirit Knight boss who, when defeated, unlocked a new weapon ability that drastically changed my playstyle.
It is these moments of wonder and wonder that make the Crimson Desert shine. But beyond that, unfortunately, the game often feels like it’s stretched too thin by trying to do too many things and not really refining any one idea.
Take war, for example. The game’s action combat feels frantic and intense early on, in line with a straight-up action game, becoming more interesting in the late game once you unlock a wider range of skills. But even before you get to the point where everything is unlocked, it’s surprisingly difficult. Each enemy you kill usually has a brief execution animation that plays, something that isn’t annoying against some enemies, but becomes serious when you’re trying to capture an area and fighting 40 enemies. This makes it difficult to capture bases. And while there are some enjoyably challenging boss battles, there are also just as many, if not more, that are miserable.
Bosses have huge, sweeping attacks and very small windows for when you can deal damage, as well as small areas that give a big “return to battle zone” warning if you stray even an inch or two in the wrong direction. Crimson Desert really wants you to locate Abyss artifacts to upgrade Cliff’s stats and purchase new combat abilities, as well as gather resources through mining, lumbering, and more. And if you’re not upgrading everything accordingly, you’ll be easily defeated by bosses, but without a solid stats or leveling system, it’s hard to tell if you’re really prepared enough for a given mission or boss.
I can confidently say that Crimson Desert has some of the most obnoxious and frustrating boss battles I’ve ever encountered, with the exception of a handful of battles that can oddly be defeated instantly with very specific moves. The more abilities you unlock, the messier the combat can get, as you’ll have over a dozen different buttons to press to land specific attacks.
Then there’s the healing system, as the only way to heal Cliff is through food in his inventory, or food you cook on a bonfire. But the boss blows up your food supplies, which means you’re constantly on the lookout for new meals, spending hours gathering things and cooking them. And therein lies the crux of my major issue with Crimson Desert – much of the game feels like it’s simply wasting your time. This is a game that I’ve played for 100 hours which probably should have been like 50 to 60 hours.
The main reason for this is that, like cooking, almost every aspect of the game is deliberately designed to drag things out in a way that isn’t enjoyable in the slightest. I appreciate the emphasis on exploration, but the lack of easy fast travel becomes really severe when you’re spending 20 to 30 minutes between quests. Locations where you solve puzzles to unveil Abyss artifacts can also be used as fast travel, but only when they have been solved. This means that if you don’t figure out a puzzle and want to come back later, you won’t get a fast travel point.
Similarly, if you want to upgrade your gear, you will have to spend time grinding materials, cutting down trees, looking for ore, etc. Even the design of the searches feels unnecessarily drawn out. For example, at the beginning of the game, you try to learn how to dye clothes, follow an ally to the shop, and then learn that they have moved the cauldron you need to town. You go to town and use the cauldron, but then you have to come back to the shop to use the dye. A quest that could have been completed in a few minutes took me 15, and this is not an isolated incident – as this kind of design is spread throughout the game.
If it had an interesting narrative component I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it, but as I said before, there isn’t really anything engaging going on with most of the game’s storytelling. Most of these extra efforts you are putting in are for the reward of tangible items and equipment, or adding another inventory slot. Limited inventory and management are other issues you have to constantly contend with, such as making frequent trips to towns or camps to unload items. With Crimson Desert these small frustrations and issues begin to rapidly add up and escalate to a point where they become serious.
The real problem with Crimson Desert is that it’s overdesigned – there are too many moving pieces. Even as deep as I’ve gone, there are still half a dozen systems I haven’t touched, like trading and banking. And perhaps most importantly, it’s not all that fun. I loved running around Pyvel and poking my head into ancient ruins, but that joy was constantly punctuated by an oppressive boss fight that took me two hours, an incomprehensible puzzle with a solution that required an ability I didn’t yet have, or weird controls that would lead me off the edge of a cliff to my doom, forcing a rebirth. And while I didn’t think Crimson Desert was an overly buggy experience, especially for a game of this size, there were five hard crashes and a handful of bugs in my time, such as getting my wagon completely stuck in a building, forcing me to opt to go back to camp and retrieve it, then redo the mission.
I wish Crimson Desert had removed some of its unnecessary systems, simplified combat, and actually mastered the exploration and puzzle-solving. Quiet moments on mountain tops and strolling through the bustling streets of the city, accompanied by small stories, are truly something special. However, the game’s lack of a meaningful main narrative and over-reliance on progressing things undoubtedly hurt it.
But, more than anything, with Crimson Desert there is a foundation upon which I hope it can be built, and given that this is Pearl Abyss’s first single-player game, I wonder how much of that can be made up for in the growing pains. The studio has clearly taken liberal inspiration from other games, but I hope there’s more to come in the future. There’s something special hidden beneath the surface of the Crimson Desert, if all those unnecessary layers can be cut away.
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