Review | Crimson Desert

A Short Review

I've never played another game from Pear Abyss, and that was probably the right call. Although I love Korean games and enjoy them, I can't say the same for the whole 100 hours in this game. This was clearly an MMO transformed into an open-world single-player game while never gluing together basic game concepts. Crimson Desert feels like a mash of so many things (which is mostly impressive), and rarely do they work as a whole. Still, it's one of the best open worlds to date, with details, graphics, and livable coherent synergy all over the place.

Maybe the best call is to wait for more patches - the team works 24/7 to make everything polished, but in every update there is something new that doesn't work, and so many gameplay changes that you need to learn half of the game all over again. Kudos to the team, but I prefer minor patches, not such drastic changes.

Story and the Characters

The story in this game... sucks. It plain sucks. Think of it as 4 factions doing something (mostly at war), never intertwined with each other, with so many flaws and weird bits in almost every mission. I was constantly losing track of what was happening, nor did it make sense. The story is really bad, and the characters lack depth, so if you need that in a game, just skip this one.

Game Design, Exploration

Like I've mentioned, it's all about doing quests and exploring the world. The 4K native mode, 120 Hertz, and VSync features are something else. Never have I ever seen graphics so good, with distance in the map looking like near proximity. It's impressive, and the world itself is one of the best I've seen and explored. There is maybe too much here, as most of it you'll do for 50-ish hours, and then you'll see it doesn't make a point to invest more time (unless you really like exploring and fetch quests).

I think the world is too big, and the majority of the time spent to expand the world should've gone into the storytelling. If you love Skyrim, you will probably love this one, there are a lot of things to find, but not in the long term.

Combat

Combat is something like Assassin's Creed plus a bit of depth. I do love armor sets and weapons, and sockets in weapons that can hold special attacks. It's all fun and games, but it all comes down to mashing buttons and healing; that is basically the concept of every boss fight in the game. Add awful controls and all you'll do is heal and attack. It's fun, but it's not really great.

Side Content

Side content can be the biggest section, it could be its own review. There is so much to do, so many mechanics - think of it like Zelda, Assassin's Creed, Skyrim, and probably chunks of The Witcher. It's all here, but really badly executed. There are some quests that you can't figure out without guides; even main quests lack proper guidelines and it all just feels piled up here, especially flying boss fights and bits. It's a real time sinker, often fun, but it gets dull later.

Conclusion

Crimson Desert wants to have everything, and that is what you get - everything, but the price of it is bad tutorials, hard puzzles without any sense, awful storytelling and characters; and one of the best worlds to explore. Every segment of this game feels like a different team worked on it, and they never talked to compare and merge things together. It often feels out of place, but there is just something that pulls you in every day. I have 100 hours and I've had my share of fun, but man, I never ever want to touch this half-baked game with too much content in every category.

At the same time, I would suggest buying the game if you love exploring and just chillin' - it's a perfect game for that.

Good luck figuring out things on your own. 

If I've did a picture for every mechanic and mini-game in this game, that would probably go over 100+.

During my playthrough one of the special helms didn't work, so I had to skip related missions. Probably even developer have no idea what is in this game and how it works. 

I loved some puzzles, but hated the other. It's real love and hate relationship game.

Do you feel like playing? I encourage you, just be prepared for a real time eater.