For: PC
From: Pearl Abyss
Rating: ★★★½
REVIEWED BY MICHAEL ROBERTSON
Suddenly a masked figure dismounts from a horse and walks towards you. You and your friends draw your swords. There are 10 of you and only one of him.
But before you can move, time literally slows down and the figure, seemingly unaffected, walks over to a tree. He uproots it with his bare hands and slams it into three of your buddies. You realise you have made a grave error.
Now, imagine you are that masked figure, because that was one of my combat encounters in Crimson Desert. The rest of this review is purely subjective opinion, but that moment is objectively a 5/5 experience.
Crimson Desert is an open-world action fantasy adventure game where you play as Kliff, a member of the Greymanes, who are attacked by a rival faction, the Black Bears. After being stabbed and thrown into a river, Kliff awakens, now with the goals of finding any other surviving Greymanes, rebuilding their forces and taking revenge.
Originally, the game was supposed to be a prequel to Pearl Abyss’ MMO, Black Desert Online, before it was retooled into a single-player experience, and it shows. There’s a lot of the MMO flavourings I recognised, such as the abundance of quests, systems, and the expansiveness of the open world. Said world is probably Crimson Desert’s best feature. It’s massive, detailed, and beautiful. It feels like a world alive and lived in, like its people have lives outside of the player interacting with them. There are merchants walking the streets, bandits huddled in the trees, fishermen looking for their catch, beggars asking for coin - it gave me a profound feeling of place and belonging.
One of the more insane features of the world is being able to pick up almost anything you can see - a mug on the table, a torch on the wall, a pot on a ledge - all of which have different animations when you interact with them. I have filled up my inventory just by holding the pick-up button and walking through a field, collecting plants and insects. I will admit the exploration is a little shallow in places, especially when most of the puzzles or secrets you find are just skill point pick-ups or hidden behind yet another waterfall, but everything is just so nice-looking that faults are easy to ignore.
As an aside, even though the entire world is rendered beautifully and completely, and with no load screens, the performance remained stable. I had no major performance issues, keeping a solid 60fps on the highest settings at 1440p. Yet another way this game bucks the current trends in the industry.
If the open world is the bread, then the combat is the butter. What starts out as a simple system with a light and heavy attack with a block, rapidly spirals out to different weapon types, supernatural abilities, acrobatic feats and environmental attacks, with a fun alternative system of learning special attacks by having them performed on you first. These melees aren’t small affairs either. You are swarmed by 10 or more enemies at once, and they are not afraid to attack you at the same time. I do wish the camera was pulled back a bit during combat as you are quite vulnerable to attacks from behind; also, after a while, these rumbles started getting a little boring. Sure, the spectacle of fighting 30 guys at once is awesome, but if it happens too frequently, then it’s just a bit of a slog to get through.
The main problem with reviewing this game is the breakneck pace of its updates. New content and bug fixes are being thrown in practically weekly at this point. As I was writing this, two new updates dropped, one adding new mounts, additions to current systems and some quality of life stuff, and the other being a fix for some broken features. I don’t think I’ve seen a AAA game with this many updates after launch in such quick succession.
Of course, with a game as ambitious as this, there are always downsides. To me, it almost feels like the game is just too ambitious for its own good. You have base management, discovery, cooking, hunting, gambling, crafting, puzzles, bounties, mining, rock paper scissors games with children, and ... it’s too much. That’s not even half of the systems! This is where you can see the system bloat of MMO games creeping in. Sure, I could just follow the main quest, but when the world is begging to be explored, it’s hard to ignore. A few people I’ve talked to about the game have felt overwhelmed with everything from the beginning, to the point where they were completely turned off. Would a more focused experience be better? Do I need the ability to pick up basically everything that isn’t nailed down? Does every character need a relationship meter that has no practical use?
So, what about the story? Generally, large RPGs like this have a grandiose story to match. Well ... it isn’t all that interesting. What should be a catharsis-focused adventure about reuniting with comrades and getting revenge just isn’t. Plot feels like an afterthought, and while there are through-lines in the story, sometimes I was told to do something that just made me go, "wait a second, why?". Characters didn’t seem to have much depth to them, generally revolving around a traditional "stoic" archetype, especially Kliff who is about as interesting as a pile of rocks. The most fun, interesting character was a foul-mouthed drunken comrade you find relatively early, but even he got on my nerves.
I felt a big disconnect between the story and my actions, especially early on. At one point, I gave a homeless person some change and then freed a woman tied up underground right next to them, and apparently this meant I was a paragon of virtue and received supernatural powers? It kind of feels like MMO quest and story design. Not a bad thing per se, just not what I expected.
There’s also some. Weird pacing issues ... with the dialogue. Characters often leave a sizable gap between statements, and sometimes continue talking as if Kliff has answered them. Is it translation issues? Cut lines? A bug? I couldn’t tell, but it happened way too often.
The best way I can summarise Crimson Desert is by stating the obvious: it’s a single player MMO. There’s a lot to do and explore and after a while, you’ll see the patterns. Whether the patterns are a frustrating exercise in tedium or a comfy blanket of familiarity will be up to the individual. I can see both people who will play this for years and those who bounce off in an hour. Overall, I’m rather positive about it. It has a lot of heart and soul in a world where some games in the same genre just feel paint by numbers. The combat is flashy and has amazing depth for those who want to express themselves, the world is beautiful and inviting and it’s all tied together by just how real everything feels. With the updates constantly coming out, I’m sure the game is in good hands. However, the lacklustre story, strange controls, and rough start as you try to learn the intricacies of this new world might just be enough to keep you away. For those who stick around, I hope you enjoy your stay in Pywel.
GIVEAWAY
Following our review of Saros last weekend, The Mix has a prize pack consisting of a copy of the game, limited edition backpack and key chain to give away to a lucky reader.
To enter, send an email with the subject line "Saros giveway" to odt.features@odt.co.nz and answer the following question: which actor plays protagonist Arjun Devraj in Saros? (Hint: you can find the answer in the review, which is available at www.odt.co.nz.) Entries close noon on Friday May 22nd; a winner will be drawn that afternoon.
