Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss has revealed significant changes it plans to make to the game this summer, while also teasing upcoming DLC.
Outlining content updates planned for June to September, Pearl Abyss confirmed story refinements, new combat challenges, cross-save support, and quality-of-life improvements set for the single-player open world action adventure game.
Let’s start with the new combat content, aimed at existing players. Pearl Abyss said this will give players the chance to “prove their true strength as a Greymane.” Expect more information in the future.
There’s a Re-Blockade rework coming that makes the flow before and after a blockade “feel more natural,” Pearl abyss said, along with new ways to defend certain strongholds from invasion. Rewards will also be improved to make liberating strongholds feel more rewarding. The Re-Blockade feature was added to help endgame players stay engaged with the world, after some had said they couldn’t find enemies to fight because they’d cleared them all out.
But perhaps the most significant changes are to character and story. One of the chief criticisms of Crimson Desert is that its story isn’t particularly interesting, and its main character, Kliff, is one dimensional. Most who have played Crimson Desert will be aware of the discussion around Kliff and his lack of personality. The gruff Greymane is a man of few words; ‘Alright,’ which he responds with to even the most dramatic of lines of dialogue from other characters, has become a meme within the community.
But Kliff’s empty personality is just a part of Crimson Desert’s overall story issues. Certainly, the game has been praised for its open world, combat, and many, many systems. But the story and Kliff himself are generally thought of as the weaker aspects of the game. From IGN’s Crimson Desert review:
While the world you’ll explore is full of fun stuff to do, the stories you’ll find in it are consistently bad. From the moment you’re introduced to the first of its three playable characters – Kliff, a viking-coded warrior who is on a low stakes revenge quest against another group of barbarians – there’s very little to become invested in, and it only gets worse from there. The story is aimless, the characters are forgettable across the board, the dialogue is often pretty hard to listen to, and there’s an entire multi-chapter arc in the main questline that’s centered on a character who dies offscreen before the story even begins – they continually try to make you care about this person through multiple funeral scenes separated by hours and hours of game time. It’s odd because, with long sequences of talking to your companions and a lot of time spent watching cutscenes as part of the main story, it does seem like Pearl Abyss wanted people to care about this stuff, but almost none of it is really worth paying attention to and much of it is actively cringe worthy. That said, there are also a lot of cutscenes full of cool, anime-style fights – those are pretty sick.
Today, Pearl Abyss said “enhancements are planned to strengthen the narrative and bring greater balance to the playable characters.” On story improvements specifically, Pearl Abyss is “refining the coherence of key scenes to strengthen the narrative flow of Kliff’s journey and make it more engaging.”
Damiane and Oongka, the other two playable characters that do not properly fit into the story because they’re locked out of key moments, will also see improvements. “The overall gameplay experience for Damiane and Oongka will be improved, with various adjustments made so that all three playable characters share the spotlight,” Pearl Abyss said.
The cross-save feature does what you’d expect. By linking an account, players will be able to share save files and continue across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. Quality-of-life improvements for non-combat content are coming to trading and farming, “addressing areas players have found inconvenient.”
And then the big one: Crimson Desert’s upcoming DLC. Pearl Abyss only teased the DLC, confirming its existence and that it was being worked on. But it did describe it as a “meaningful addition to the player’s journey.” Could it be considered an expansion?
“Beyond the content and features above, the team is hard at work on an upcoming DLC for Crimson Desert,” Pearl Abyss said. “While details cannot be shared just yet, it is being prepared as a meaningful addition to the player’s journey, with more information to follow.”
What could this DLC involve? Players have gone out of bounds and found various interesting parts of the map with unused content. There’s also a named area to the east, called Sunbaked Peaks, that players are currently unable to reach. Perhaps a story expansion could open that up.
Overall, there’s a lot to get excited about here if you’re a Crimson Desert fan, and Pearl Abyss will be hoping story changes will encourage newcomers who were put off by the characters and plot. All the while, the pace of updates remains remarkable, with a patch released every week.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
