What exactly is Crimson Desert?
The first meal you learn to cook in Crimson Desert is Clear Soup, a brothy mixture of simply water, meat, and lentils. It looks nice and is probably filling, but it leaves you wanting something with a little more depth of flavor. As it turns out, it’s the perfect allegory for Crimson Desert at large: a beautiful, exploration-rich open-world game that’s a clear technological achievement, hampered by a cornucopia of little frustrations and a stark lack of narrative depth.
In Crimson Desert, you follow the exploits of Kliff, the leader of a fantasy peacekeeping corps known as the Greymanes. After a brutal ambush where your company is scattered and Kliff is killed, you are revived by supernatural beings and set on a path to save the world from dark forces.
The world of Pywel is a visual and technical marvel. It is rendered as one continuous location, and you can quite literally see every inch of it from any high point. From the clockwork city where machine beings tend farms to floating labyrinths in the sky, it’s breathtaking. But the major downside that becomes apparent early on is that the game doesn’t have much of a story to tell or any major themes to impart to the player, making it feel more like a digital museum than a living realm.
Story & Atmosphere
I can’t think of a better way to describe the main story than to say it’s simply a mess. The plot fluctuates from hard to follow to downright nonsensical at times, focused more on delivering spectacle and bombast than character growth. It feels like watching a compilation of “Game of Thrones’ best moments” on YouTube; you get the cool sequences and big set pieces, but without the backing of real character depth to make them land with any impact.
Kliff himself feels just one step removed from a silent protagonist. This means that despite the beauty of the world, there’s nothing to ground you in it or make you truly care about your actions. The one exception is reuniting the Greymanes. Seeing your camp come together, watching it grow with new tents and people, is undeniably satisfying, and there are genuine moments of bonding between Kliff and his allies that feel authentic.
However, the game makes this emotional core optional about a third of the way through. This is a baffling design choice, as it means players focused on the main quest might miss the only part of the game that actually has some heart. Without these moments, the game relies entirely on its atmosphere—which is admittedly thick, but can’t carry the weight of a 100-hour journey alone without feeling hollow.
Gameplay & Mechanics
You’ll see a lot of comparisons to Breath of the Wild and Dragon’s Dogma, and the inspiration is clear. Crimson Desert takes a minimalistic approach to everything. There are very few tutorials, requiring you to learn through experimentation. The game lacks immediate fast travel, requiring you to discover points through exploration, and there’s a heavy focus on using your myriad skills to solve environmental puzzles.
The combat is frenetic and intense, even integrating absurd wrestling moves that feel surprisingly “crunchy” and satisfying. You can grab enemies, throw them, or perform a suplex, which feels fresh in a fantasy setting. But there’s a catch: each enemy you kill typically triggers a short execution animation. While cool at first, this becomes aggravating when you’re trying to take over a base and fighting off 40 enemies. It turns what should be an epic skirmish into a tedious slog.
Then there is the healing system. Kliff can only heal with food in his inventory or meals cooked at bonfires. Because bosses make you blow through your food supplies, you spend an inordinate amount of time chopping wood, mining, and hunting just to stay alive. This highlights my major issue with Crimson Desert: how much of it feels like it’s simply wasting your time. A game that I played for over 100 hours probably should have been 50 or 60 hours instead.
Overdesign and Boss Frustrations
The true problem here is that Crimson Desert is overdesigned. There are too many moving pieces—trading, banking, base building, soldier management—and not all of them are fun. Even simple quests feel needlessly drawn out. For example, an early quest to learn how to dye clothes involves traveling to a shop, then to a city to use a cauldron, then back to the shop to apply the dye. A 3-minute task takes 15 minutes for no narrative reason.
The boss battles are another source of extreme frustration. While some are enjoyably challenging, many are miserable affairs with huge, wide-reaching attacks and tiny damage windows. If you haven’t ground out enough Abyss artifacts to upgrade Kliff’s stats, you’ll be beaten into the ground. But without a tangible leveling system, it’s hard to tell if you’re actually prepared for a mission until you’re already dying.
I experienced five hard crashes on PC and several bugs, such as my wagon getting stuck in a building, forcing a total mission restart. Yet, the quiet moments atop mountain peaks or stealing a hat from a sentient tree are truly special. Playing two days early allowed me to appreciate these small details before the main story’s logic gaps began to grate on my nerves. There is a foundation here that is incredible, if only Pearl Abyss had cut out the unneeded layers.
Final Verdict
Crimson Desert is a game of two halves. On one side is a breathtaking, exploration-rich world that represents a genuine technological achievement. On the other is a cluttered, often frustrating experience that lacks a cohesive narrative and relies too heavily on systems that feel designed to stall the player’s progress. It’s a game that tries to do everything and only succeeds at about half of it.
If you can push through the messy story and the tedious crafting loops, there is something special buried beneath the surface. The sense of discovery is among the best in the genre, and when the combat clicks, it’s a blast. It’s a bold, flawed, and over-ambitious first effort that is still worth experiencing for its scale. The Early Access window was a nice bonus, giving me a head start on the grind, which is unfortunately a significant part of the experience.
FAQ
Q: How vital is the cooking system?
A: It is essential for survival. Since there is no passive health regeneration, you must constantly hunt and cook to keep your inventory stocked for boss fights.
Q: Are there fast travel points?
A: Yes, but only if you solve the puzzles in Abyss artifact locations. If you skip a puzzle, you don’t get the fast travel point for that area.
Q: Can I customize my experience?
A: You play as Kliff, but you can heavily customize his gear, skills, and the growth of the Greymane mercenary camp.
Q: How does the game run on PC?
A: It’s a visual marvel but demanding. I encountered several crashes and physics bugs, so frequent saving is highly recommended.
