TheRetroArcade
Veteran
Posts: 1,952
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
A huge world awaits in Crimson Desert, with plenty to do and explore starting March 19.
Crimson Desert seems huge — not just in how much there is to do, but simply how enormous its world is. As an open-world RPG, that’s to be expected, but it’s only when you’re standing on a strange island floating in the sky, seeing the whole world stretch out beneath you, that it’s clear just how expansive the world of Pywel really is.
I recently went hands-on with the beginning portion of Crimson Desert and played about four hours, and while I never made it out to the landmarks I could see in the distance, even the area in and around the city where the game begins felt enormous and full of life.
You play Kliff, a member of a faction called the Greymanes — warriors renowned for their swordsmanship and their reputation for helping others. The early part of the story takes place in a town called Hernand, where you get your first taste of just how big and bustling Crimson Desert is. Even with four hours of playtime, there was so much to do in and around Hernand that I never made it far from town.
Quests in and around Hernand have you helping out various townspeople with their problems. But there are also plenty of activities and encounters to discover on your own. Often, you’ll find spots and buildings that outlaw factions have taken over, and they’ll attack you if you enter their territory. Defeat enough of them, though, and you’ll liberate the place so the townspeople can reclaim it.
Clearing bandits out from different locations unlocks access to new quests and activities, too. When I drove the bandits out of a fish market, fishermen moved back in, and I was able to observe them and learn to fish myself.
One of the cooler aspects of Crimson Desert is how Kliff can learn new skills not just by unlocking them from his character skill tree, but by observing them from other people. That can even happen in combat.
Fighting in Crimson Desert is a fast-paced, intense affair, with smart enemies who constantly work to surround and overwhelm you. Luckily, you’re a well-trained swordsman with quite a few abilities. Kliff can chain together fast strikes with R1 and slower, more powerful slashes with R2, but he’s also strong enough to grab enemies and throw them when you press Circle and Triangle buttons together.
Crimson Desert doesn’t really contain character classes or builds — unlocking new skills just adds more and more moves to Kliff’s repertoire, which you can use by pressing different combinations of buttons. Your fighting style is more determined by the weapons you choose to use. Kliff starts with a sword and shield, but you can also find weapons like great swords, spears, axes, and more to change how you approach combat.
You can block with L1, and if you time a block correctly as an attack lands, you can parry an enemy’s blow, knocking them briefly off-balance. Holding L1 also lets you lock onto an enemy, but the fluidity of the combat system means you’ll often quickly drop a lock so you’ll be free to attack in all directions.
Fighting stronger opponents can increase your arsenal of abilities. Midway through one early boss battle, a knight attempted to kick Kliff in the chest — and after seeing the move, Kliff learned it, incorporating it into his fighting style. From then on, I could give enemies the boot to send them flying.
The final battle of my preview was by far the toughest I faced, against Kailock, the Hornsplitter, the leader of a local merchant guild who’d been scouring Hernand for Abyss Artifacts. These are magical items that have fallen from the Abyss, a realm of floating islands above Pywel, and they imbue their wielders with strange powers. Kailock’s artifact makes him very fast and agile, while also allowing him to generate waves of magic from his weapon.
Kailock makes it clear it’ll take understanding your opponents’ abilities and using skills like parrying and powerful attacks to defeat them. And thanks to Abyss Arti...
Read more: Full article on blog.playstation.com
What do you think about this?
Crimson Desert seems huge — not just in how much there is to do, but simply how enormous its world is. As an open-world RPG, that’s to be expected, but it’s only when you’re standing on a strange island floating in the sky, seeing the whole world stretch out beneath you, that it’s clear just how expansive the world of Pywel really is.
I recently went hands-on with the beginning portion of Crimson Desert and played about four hours, and while I never made it out to the landmarks I could see in the distance, even the area in and around the city where the game begins felt enormous and full of life.
You play Kliff, a member of a faction called the Greymanes — warriors renowned for their swordsmanship and their reputation for helping others. The early part of the story takes place in a town called Hernand, where you get your first taste of just how big and bustling Crimson Desert is. Even with four hours of playtime, there was so much to do in and around Hernand that I never made it far from town.
Quests in and around Hernand have you helping out various townspeople with their problems. But there are also plenty of activities and encounters to discover on your own. Often, you’ll find spots and buildings that outlaw factions have taken over, and they’ll attack you if you enter their territory. Defeat enough of them, though, and you’ll liberate the place so the townspeople can reclaim it.
Clearing bandits out from different locations unlocks access to new quests and activities, too. When I drove the bandits out of a fish market, fishermen moved back in, and I was able to observe them and learn to fish myself.
One of the cooler aspects of Crimson Desert is how Kliff can learn new skills not just by unlocking them from his character skill tree, but by observing them from other people. That can even happen in combat.
Fighting in Crimson Desert is a fast-paced, intense affair, with smart enemies who constantly work to surround and overwhelm you. Luckily, you’re a well-trained swordsman with quite a few abilities. Kliff can chain together fast strikes with R1 and slower, more powerful slashes with R2, but he’s also strong enough to grab enemies and throw them when you press Circle and Triangle buttons together.
Crimson Desert doesn’t really contain character classes or builds — unlocking new skills just adds more and more moves to Kliff’s repertoire, which you can use by pressing different combinations of buttons. Your fighting style is more determined by the weapons you choose to use. Kliff starts with a sword and shield, but you can also find weapons like great swords, spears, axes, and more to change how you approach combat.
You can block with L1, and if you time a block correctly as an attack lands, you can parry an enemy’s blow, knocking them briefly off-balance. Holding L1 also lets you lock onto an enemy, but the fluidity of the combat system means you’ll often quickly drop a lock so you’ll be free to attack in all directions.
Fighting stronger opponents can increase your arsenal of abilities. Midway through one early boss battle, a knight attempted to kick Kliff in the chest — and after seeing the move, Kliff learned it, incorporating it into his fighting style. From then on, I could give enemies the boot to send them flying.
The final battle of my preview was by far the toughest I faced, against Kailock, the Hornsplitter, the leader of a local merchant guild who’d been scouring Hernand for Abyss Artifacts. These are magical items that have fallen from the Abyss, a realm of floating islands above Pywel, and they imbue their wielders with strange powers. Kailock’s artifact makes him very fast and agile, while also allowing him to generate waves of magic from his weapon.
Kailock makes it clear it’ll take understanding your opponents’ abilities and using skills like parrying and powerful attacks to defeat them. And thanks to Abyss Arti...
Read more: Full article on blog.playstation.com
What do you think about this?