Crimson Desert Review

Crimson Desert - An exciting, heavily ambitious open-world, sandbox adventure that is still stacked with flaws, despite the updates.

A review that arrives after almost three months after the release date might sound strange to some of you, but the reason is clear. Crimson Desert is big – very big. In fact, it is massive, to the point that Pearl Abyss strongly advises playing at least 60 hours to gain a more thorough, accurate, and reliable perspective on my overall open-world sandbox experience.  

After at least a week into the game, I can affirm that I have logged around 80 hours of playtime to sink my teeth into, and I must say, I loved the experience for the most part. For the first several hours, Crimson Desert drags due to the prologue, chore-like quests, and activities. I would say that after about 7 to 9 hours, the game truly took off. 

There is far too much to do in this game, and as of now, I still cannot get enough of this adventure. Combat, puzzle solving, cooking, arm wrestling, cleaning chimneys, aiding people with major and minor problems, strangers handing me notes that have new quests - and these are just the tip of the iceberg. 

This is one of the most unique and action-packed RPG experiences I have had in a decade, and although, of course, there are problems and plenty of them (which I will explain later), I am confident in saying I am going to get at least hundreds more hours of playtime.  

We have Assassin’s Creed Valhalla meets Red Dead Redemption 2 meets Tears of the Kingdom meets The Witcher III, and so on. It is almost like the developer could not decide on a setting, so they merged a bunch of different concepts we have all experienced in other video games to create a gigantic, uniquely obscure open world.

You could argue that Crimson Desert is suffering from a severe identity crisis, and it is unclear exactly what they are going for. However, this bizarre mixture is oddly intriguing.  

This goes without saying, but the map of Pywel is huge – unfathomably huge.

To put it into perspective, it can take up tp around thirty minutes to reach a single destination. As for travel, it ranges from riding animals to taking trains to flying on mystical creatures and jet packs, and much more.  

Every time I enter a new location, I am met with different surprises that one-up each other. Moreover, the world’s visuals are amazing regardless of what climate or weather condition you are in. This comes as no surprise, as the exploration is one of Crimson Desert’s main draws. 

Crimson Desert’s biggest selling point for me was the extremely high, fast-paced, aggressive, fluid, thrilling, and immersive combat, and how insane it looks. That may be many words to describe it, and I could include more words, but that is how brilliant the combat is. Constantly engaging in battles wherever possible gets my blood pumping as I know I am about to inflict chaos with the use of weapons, magic, grappling, wrestling moves, cool combos, takedowns, and more. Furthermore, experimenting with various fighting styles.  

There are quests where I (sometimes with allies) am required to eliminate an army of enemies to liberate forts, which can be overwhelming yet exhilarating. These are the times when I feel the most alive, as these battles enable me to express myself in the best way possible with impressive combat abilities.  

To make things better, the skill trees that consist of three classes: Spirit, Stamina, and Health, have a rich set of abilities. Plus, the seventy intense boss fights require you to approach them with completely changed strategies. The only issue I have with the combat is the faulty parry mechanic. It does not always connect with enemy attacks, even when you press the button at the right time.  

It has been a while since I last used the right bumper and trigger to attack, and no matter how many times I use them, they remain my least favorite default controls. They definitely require quite some time to get used to, along with the fact that combat itself is not the only thing to worry about. 

Repeatedly tapping a button to increase the speed of your runs, clicking multiple buttons to execute precision jumps, clicking multiple buttons for interactions, holding and releasing the left trigger to aim and fire, the list goes on. Sidenote: There is the option to remap them as long as you are playing on PC, like me – I cannot say the same for console.

Despite my disdain for the default controls, I decided to stick with it to challenge myself.  

I did not know about this until around a couple of weeks ago, but this game has almost zero hand-holding. No hints, tips, and a very small amount of yellow paint. I am very much used to playing games that include the aforementioned to get me by, and I would be fine with that. However, this challenge felt like a breath of fresh air. A game that is essentially telling you that you are on your own. Either get good or go home, which is what more games should have. 

Now, add the fact that there are an abundance of difficult puzzles to solve by yourself, and a cumulation of these is one of the reasons that may deter some people from getting this game. Which is fair, because this game is definitely not for everyone. To give you an example of how difficult some of these puzzles are.  

There are minimal sound, voice, or visual cues to signal that you are on the right track. No hints appear because you are taking too long to complete the puzzle. You will have to use the Axiom Force, which is the grab and move feature, to place the pieces in, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.  

I was already stuck in the first set of puzzles. Even the first puzzle was no joke, as I had spent about 5 to 10 minutes on it. I am one of those who will take it on the chin and complete these tough puzzles with no help. However, the difficulty of these puzzles will force some of you to resort to sharing guides with other players online, as well as looking at YouTube guides.  

Crimson Desert is not perfect, boy, is it not? I have many gripes with the game, but we could be here forever. Therefore, I will explain only a few of the ones that exasperated me the most. The story – or lack thereof- after about eight hours, it took the game to finally let us know that the story is another generic revenge arc, and you have to build your own faction to tackle the blackbeards who slaughtered Kliff and his family at the beginning of the game.  

The main story is not too shabby in some parts, but it is poorly structured.

I am wildly confused as to why they would have me doing a ton of irrelevant tasks in the first eight hours, then go back to the actual point of the story. It is like the story is told in intervals. I have no idea what direction Pearl Abyss was heading in with this style of storytelling, and I am certain they do not either.  

Despite being able to interact with virtually anyone and anything, I do not recall having many interesting conversations. To make things worse, the main character (Kliff) has a forgettable, one-dimensional personality and is impossible to connect with. He speaks in a generic, baseless tone to the point where I would prefer he say nothing at all.

Eventually, I unlocked new playable characters (Damiane and Oongka), and I feel the same way about them. To add salt to the wound, the facial animations and lip syncing are not very good. It also perplexed me that there is no character creation, especially for a game of this size.

Another thing, the camera has a mind of its own. It automatically pans the camera angles in different directions, especially during combat, and I have to constantly adjust it. 

Generally speaking, Crimson Desert has some of the most stacked and immersive content you will see in a video game – in the modern era, anyway. Despite the updates, the game still has many glaring positives; however, it has just as many glaring negatives. Having said that, this game is a highly enjoyable sandbox experience, and, as mentioned earlier, I will continue playing because it has countless things to offer.  

I will say this - if your main focus is a vast, extremely interactive open world that involves addictive, mayhem-inducing combat mechanics, as well as taking on a plethora of very difficult puzzles. Moreover, you are patient as it takes a while for the game to cook. Then yes, go ahead and pick this bad boy up.