By the time this article has been released, Crimson Desert, one of this year’s most anticipated games, will have been out for a couple of weeks. For a game that myself and most of the internet once thought would never come out, the hype online before the game’s launch was overflowing with excitement. To the developer Pearl Abyss’s credit, they’ve proved time and through on-site demos and online gameplay videos that they’re confident in the product they’ve made, that it’s real, and that it’s going to be a contender for time in your life.
Crimson Desert was first officially revealed at the Game Awards in December 2020. Up until then, Pearl Abyss was known for the graphically beautiful and combat intense MMORPG, Black Desert Online. Crimson Desert was originally designed as their next MMORPG, but sometime during its development the team changed it to a single-player, open world game. So the bones of the MMORPG and the scope of its gameplay systems remained in-tact, all being built on Pearl Abyss’s custom Black Space Engine. The promise in my opinion, if done correctly, means you’re playing a game that feels like the Witcher 3 ran into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which then fused into Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. So you’ve got an open-world with tons of exploration, side-quests, puzzles, life-sim chores like farming, breeding animals, and many other mini-games and sights to see alongside the main story.
I was originally going to write this article about over ambition in video games being a bad thing. However, I’ve come to realize ambition is just a matter of perception. The AAA game space to me has always been where some of my most fond memories came from, but now it’s degraded into fewer releases, bigger budgets, and sequel/remakes to provide companies with a lifeline. Don’t get me wrong, Resident Evil Requiem is a superb example of doing a sequel right, and I’m still looking forward to part 3 of Final Fantasy 7. But as I’ve gotten older and have less time, anything over 40 hours is hard for me to pick up and start. So why would I play Crimson Desert, a game promising 100+ hours of content?
Honestly, playing it at last year’s Tokyo Game Show made me a believer. I remember sitting down in the booth and going through the simplest tutorial that demonstrated the game's complex controls. I was promoted to move a flag with 3 button inputs and then place it into a spot with precision using the touchpad. It felt unnecessarily too complex just to pick up and place a flag. Then there was the magic tutorial, which had me using a radial wheel to cycle through magic types and then press the analogue stick in to use the spell.
My mind and motor skills were being tested. As someone who was comfortable with Armored Core’s controls or Monster Hunter’s claw grip on the PSP, it shouldn’t have phased me. Maybe it’s the souls-like genre in me, but I see the controls in Crimson Desert as a way toward mastering the interconnected systems within the game, giving me access to more moves and ways to approach combat with a freedom I’ve never had before in an open-world game. Part of what I love about Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, even if I don’t enjoy the combat, is choosing how to express myself using the different tools. This leads to emergent gameplay and memorable moments.
The combat section of the demo was pretty fun, and I could see the depth outside of just pressing my light and heavy attacks. I could chain kicks into throw grapples, combine sword combat with magic, leap into the air to shoot my range weapons, and even more combinations that I could only imagine doing after playing the full release. The combat is not completely stamina based to the point I couldn’t attack like in a souls-like, and the hits felt meaty with great impact and hitstop like any Capcom action game. I had to fight through waves of people in this huge battle, jumping on and off my horse, with cannon fire raining down as I raced up the mountain into the enemy’s castle. It was around then I reminded myself that the demo should have ended by now, but after 20 mins it just kept going.
I looked over and saw a sign stating the demo was an hour long, or as long as you’d like to play if no one else was waiting. Pearl Abyss weren’t hiding the difficulty of the game's controls or content. They understood the controls weren’t simple, the various systems in the gameplay were hard to grapple, and so they allowed players the time to adjust and properly form an opinion on the game. They are confident in the game on a level I don’t see from most game developers.
The process of learning these new systems, the temptation to master the freedom of combat, and the confidence that Pearl Abyss has in their game is what has me sold. I didn’t even go into the range weapons, the multiple playable characters, the excellent voice acting and action sequences, or mention the fact that the game ran buttery smooth on those high-end rigs at TGS. I’m sure Digital Foundry’s review of the game is already live, and I’m willing to bet it’s singing praise over the technical aspects and visuals of the Black Space Engine on both PC and console.
I’m willing to take the risk because Pearl Abyss is making a truly ambitious single player RPG. I sometimes ask myself, what if Sandfall Interactive decided to make Expedition 33 as a 2D or 2.5D game with sprite based art, similar to Sea of Stars or the Octopath Traveler series? Would the game have appealed to as many people? Would the story and characters have resonated the same with us? And would the epic scale of the enemies and environments still leave us in awe?
Game Science, the developers of Black Myth: Wukong, went all in to push the tech of current hardware to bring their vision to life. I loved the lore of the game and the visuals were the first-time in a while I would just sit and pan the camera around me. The ambitious journey of Sun Wulong was represented in every facet of the game, even if some of those things, like the game’s combat, didn’t completely fulfill that vision. I believe myself and other fans resonated with how their portrayal of the legendary journey would be adapted. Game Science never shied away from their ambitions or having confidence in their game.
Finally, one minor point, Korean game developers have been cooking with all my favorite games over the last five years. Lies of P, First Berserker of Khazhan, and Stellar Blade have some of the best action combat within their genre. Not to mention, each of those games ran without any real technical issues, and visually they looked stunning. So I’m happy to continue supporting the Korean video game industry for these larger budget, single-player releases.
Will Crimson Desert have its faults? Yes, I’m sure it will. As with any massive open-world, there’s bound to be issues here and there. Will the controls or the potentially mediocre story turn people away? Maybe. Will the 100+ hours of content within the game detract even more people? You bet. But all those things come with the territory, and the real question to ask yourself is, “Are you ambitious enough to commit to Crimson Desert?” Because my answer is “Yes, I am.”
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