To say I was hyped for Crimson Desert would be an understatement. It looked like just my type of game. All the pre-release footage for Pearl Abyss’s open-world, fantasy action game with RPG-lite elements got me thinking this could be my dream game. We were shown main character Kliff taking part in large-scale battles, fighting mighty warriors and fantastical creatures, exploring a large open-world full of activities to undertake, and even riding dragons and piloting steam-powered mechs. My hope was that this game could combine elements from some of my favorite fantasy RPGs, namely The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and Dragon’s Dogma, and give us the most complete open-world fantasy experience to date.
My main concern was if the game would even run properly. It honestly looked too good to be true at times. But I’m happy to say Crimson Desert is true. It is real. I’m having a hell of a time with it. Currently halfway through the main story, I still haven’t experienced many of the game’s more interesting features, such as using elemental abilities, fighting the more large-scale boss battles, or riding the previously-mentioned dragons and mechs. But much of my time with the game has still been a blast. It hasn’t been a perfect experience, though. Far from it. But damned if it’s still not fun.
Crimson Desert’s prologue has us take control of main character Kliff as he and his band of do-gooders known as the Greymanes are attacked by their rival band of ne’er-do-wells called the Black Bears. Surprised and outnumbered by the Black Bears, many of the Greymanes are killed, and the rest are scattered to the four winds. Kliff himself is mortally wounded and thrown into a river, but he is soon revived and taken to a strange land in the sky known as the Abyss. After receiving a stern warning about dark forces seeking to disturb the natural order of the world and plunge it into chaos (or something along those lines), Kliff is sent back to the mortal world of Pywel, where he seeks to find and reunite with his scattered Greymane allies and get back at the Black Bears, but he must also (eventually) deal with the dark forces at play against him that seek to destroy everything. The story is nothing all that engrossing, and it actually takes some time for it to get going. Even when it does, I can’t call it gripping, though it is at least serviceable.
Kliff is also not the most charismatic or lively main character out there. He certainly gives off the “tough guy” vibe with his stoicism and direct manner, but even after being revived from death and visiting the outright alien-looking floating landmasses of the Abyss, he takes it all in stride with little to no reaction, making him come across as rather muted; kind of like a custom silent protagonist that you’d find in other games rather than a set main character. However, as the story goes on, he does begin to show signs of life and actually reacts to different situations, visibly showing anger, frustration, and occasionally some amusement when interacting with his fellow Greymanes.
Having recently completed Red Dead Redemption II for the first time (shocking, I know), I can’t help but compare Crimson Desert to that game in many respects. While one is a grounded Western epic, and the other is a fantastical tale of swords and sorcery, they are both very similar, gameplay-wise, with their vast open worlds full of things to do…not all of which are necessary. But while RDR2 had side activities that I largely wasn’t interested in (fishing, playing card games, collecting animal pelts to craft all kinds of outfits, etc.), Crimson Desert…also lets you fish and gamble and whatnot, but it has other activities that are generally more entertaining, such as arm wrestling, fist-fighting, liberating towns and forts from hostile factions, and solving all kinds of puzzles, both out in the open-world and during missions. Some of these puzzles are doozies, for sure, but it’s always satisfying when you figure them out. I even enjoy cooking in Crimson Desert more than I did in RDR2. Acquiring ingredients and recipes in this game is far easier and more convenient, and different dishes are useful in refilling Kliff’s health, stamina, and spirit, and some even offer temporary elemental resistances.
Crimson Desert also has a base-building aspect. After Kliff acquires a camp and starts bringing in his old Greymane companions, he can send his companions out to acquire lumber, mine minerals, do some farming, and other jobs to acquire necessary resources to further upgrade the camp with stuff like a trade wagon, a horse stable, and weapons shop (I admittedly haven’t even acquired some of these features yet in my playthrough, but I look forward to when I do). You can even send out Greymane companions to retake forts or towns that have been taken over by enemies. Furthermore, Kliff can adopt different pets who can assist in gathering items and loot and send them to your storage (I just adopted a pet eagle myself at the time of this writing).
Speaking of storage, while you begin the game with a standard storage chest, after acquiring the camp, you can put different chests and cupboards in Kliff’s house that can each store different types of items (one chest for crafting minerals, one for mission-specific notes and collectibles, one for armor and clothing, etc.), and you can add other furniture in the house as well. A lot of this stuff wasn’t originally implemented into the game, though. Those extra storage chests were added in through updates. Even the standard storage chest you start the game with was extremely limited at first. You could not actively put any items into the storage chest yourself, you could only take things out. The storage chest would only fill up with mission rewards if Kliff’s inventory was full. Thankfully, Pearl Abyss changed that lame-ass feature in one of their many post-release updates. There are too many other updates and quality of life changes they’ve added into the game for me to list here, but some of the better ones that I really appreciated include:
-being able to access materials in storage to upgrade weapons and armor at blacksmiths rather than having to carry them in your inventory at all times
-making the layout of the pause menu more user-friendly when navigating the inventory and loading/saving your game
-updating the world map to include icons showing which locations and collectibles you already found and which ones have yet to be discovered
-swords would originally just hang on the sides of Kliff and NPCs when not in use, naked and “sheathless”, which slightly irked me, but a recent update has fixed that as well by adding different types of sheaths to all weapons
Let’s get to the meat and potatoes here with Crimson Desert, which of course, would be the gameplay and combat. Like with any game that gives you such a plethora of things to do and lets you interact with the world through many different avenues, the control scheme in this game takes some getting used to (using “square” as the jump button?). But once that time comes when your familiarity with the game’s controls and features becomes more familiar to you, the proceedings become less confusing. But Kliff (and the other two playable characters) can do a lot stuff when battling enemies, including unleashing standard attacks and special skills with different weapons (swords, rapiers, shields, spears, longswords, axes, bows and arrows, flintlock pistols, etc.), unleash special kick attacks or melee strikes, grab and throw enemies, and even pull off some particularly badass wrestling moves and body slams. And I look forward to when I unlock the elemental attacks (what’s taking so friggin’ long?!). Kliff can also summon his two playable allies (Damiane and Oongka) to aid him in battle and vice versa (though I’m just one main mission short of unlocking Oongka as an ally). All three characters have their own sets of upgradable weapons and armor, as well as unique and shared skills.
Enemies, which mostly consist of human bandits and soldiers, trolls, the occasional wolf or bear, and some truly strange “elemental creatures” can be tough-ish to fight early on, but as you increase in power, you’ll be able to fight large armies of these guys without too much trouble; quite the power fantasy, indeed. Though I’m aware of other enemy types out there that I have yet to battle (give me a break, this game is huge). Boss battles, so far, have been entertaining and fun. A couple had me annoyed or proved quite tough to get through without getting clobbered too much, but overall, the bosses are worthy challenges without being ridiculously frustrating like your average Souls-like boss.
The open world of Pywel is an impressive place. The varied environments include open, grassy fields, dense forests, rocky regions, snowy areas and mountains, underground caves and caverns, the titular Crimson Desert area (which I’ve yet to visit), and different towns and settlements with their own unique forms of architecture. Not to mention the floating islands that make up the Abyss, which kind of blends science and magic in its form and function. And jumping off the Abyss or high mountains and gliding around Pywel never gets old…and it should get even better after I’ve upgraded my stamina further so I can increase my glide time. And the fast-travel system is very convenient, so much so that revisiting different areas is a pleasure. The varied NPCs that litter the different towns and settlements are pretty lively and make the world feel lived in, and pretty much all NPCs can be interacted with or gifted to raise trust, which can be useful with different vendors to receive discounts or access to special items.
So, there’s a lot to like about Crimson Desert. But there are shortcomings. Probably the most bothersome issue with this game, for me at least, is its vagueness and jankiness. Some of the puzzles are outright obtuse as hell, with the on-screen hints actually complicating matters further rather than clarifying on what you’re supposed to do. Even some mission objectives can be misleading, with the destination marker sometimes pointing to a specific area that may not actually be the right spot that you need to get to. And other times, the game is set on rushing you through the main quest. Recently in my playthrough, I returned to the Greymane camp after a long battle sequence to unload the huge amount of loot I had acquired and to go through my storage chest. But the game had other plans. The storage chest I needed to get to had the quest-giver for the next main mission standing right next to it, so once I entered the NPC’s “activation area”, the next mission began with me having to follow another NPC to a far-off location. Long story short, I eventually took part in ANOTHER long battle sequence and was further overloaded with more loot before I was able to get to my storage chest and go through all my stuff.
Another similarity between Crimson Desert and RDR2 would be the jankiness. I’ve accidentally drawn my gun on NPCs in RDR2 when I simply meant to interact with them, or I’ve randomly jumped around like a lunatic when I just wanted to pick up an item…in both games. NPCs react to Kliff if he bumps into them while walking, which can be amusing. When riding his horse through a town at a steady trot, however, it’s difficult NOT to knock people over. It doesn’t matter if you’re a good 5 feet away either when riding your horse past an NPC, you’ll still hear an “impact noise” and see the NPC get knocked to the ground as if you rammed directly into them. And in some investigation missions, you have to choose dialogue options to relay information and evidence to NPCs, but the way the game goes about presenting you with your dialogue options is borderline nonsensical. At least the game runs well. Much better than I expected, in fact (except for one specific battle sequence I went through where the frame rate became rather choppy). And the draw distance is quite good, far superior to what we got in Dragon’s Dogma where NPCs would suddenly appear out of thin air just a few feet in front of you when going through a busy town. This game does have some pop-in, but again, not nearly as bad as what we got with Dragon’s Dogma. There are some weird lighting issues, as well, with a dark cave or building interior suddenly lighting up out of nowhere, and when characters and NPCs move around in a dark setting, there’s a strange “afterimage” effect where each swing of an arm or turning of a head leaves behind a blur effect. Nothing game-breaking but still noticeable. The game hasn’t crashed on me even once, though, so there’s that. And this is all on a base PS5, mind you.
For me, Crimson Desert is a success. It’s not the best game I’ve ever played, but damned if it’s not getting close to becoming one of my favorites. The story is lacking, for sure, but by the halfway point, it does start to pick up, though it is still very straightforward. But I’m having a blast with this game, and a big part of that is because of the constant updates it’s been getting, most of which really make a difference in increasing the fun factor. As I’ve pointed out several times, though, I still have yet to experience many of Crimson Desert‘s bigger and more impressive features, including the larger than life boss battles, so I may return later down the line and add an update to this review if I find that the game vastly improves for me upon experiencing these other features. As of now, I fully recommend this game to those who enjoy open-world fantasy adventures with no shortage of stuff to do with a huge and dense map in which to become fully immersed.
Developer: Pearl Abyss
Publisher: Pearl Abyss
Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Release Date: 19th March 2026
