Summary
- We got to take a look at Crimson Desert open world gameplay footage in action last year.
- A lot of the open world elements are what people will really look forward to seeing now. I can't wait for people to see some of the exploration, parkour, combat, questing, etc, for themselves.
- Hands-on gameplay at Gamescom 2024 shows significant improvements in optimisation since last year.
In a closed session at Gamescom 2023 last year, I saw some gameplay behind the first trailer of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Crimson Desert from its then-recent announcement at Opening Night Live. I wasn’t allowed to talk about it until the opening day of Gamescom 2024, when I finally got to play the game for the first time. But this article isn’t about the boss fights you’ve already seen, it’s about the rest of the game I saw way back when. Here's a reminder of that trailer.
If you’ve ever wondered if the stuff in that blockbuster trailer seemed too good to be true, I can tell you tha🍸t everything you saw does actually appear in the game. The gliding and combat, the particle-effect-heavy graphics, and the seamless loading, were all highlighted by the developers in a hands-off session. The fact they had a playable version of pretty much everything I saw in that unbelievable trailer felt too good to be true, but there it was, on the screen, being played right in front of me. Even though some of the optimisation was a bit rough around the edges, it blew me away. This was an early peek at a seemingly massive new project.
What most stunned me was the ambition of the game and the quiet enthusiasm of the developers. I could tell the team was nervous showing off Crimson Desert: a large-scale single-player action RPG is not Pearl Abyss’ usual offering. However, after seeing glimpses of the open world and life skills like fishing, horse taming, and a variety of other mini-games in action, I can tell that the studio’s experience in its flagship MMO Black Desert Online has influenced much of Crimson Desert. I ta🔴lk about this in 💙more detail in our Gamescom podcast, if you want to give it a listen.
Since then, I’ve followed the game very closely, and ꩵeven talked about it with the CEO of Pearl Abyss Europe, Lybee Park, although that was mostly about the anticipation of launching a new game alongside Black Desert Online rather than any details on what to༺ expect from Crimson Desert. Peaꦗrl Abyss has been pretty secretive about its next big title, but a slew of Gamescom 2024 boss fight battle demos and some actual hands-on gameplay suggests to me we might be moving towards a big marketing push into 2025.
We don't have a concrete release window for Crimson Desert yet.
If the glimpses of gameplay I saw back in 2023 are anything to go by, it felt like a lot of the core aspects of the game were ready to go. After going hands-on with the game at Gamescom 2024, I could tell the difference between the gameplay I saw back a year ago and the intense boss battles I was struggling through in my one-hour demo of the game. The optimisation, particularly in terms of character and terrain physics, frame rat꧙es, and particle effects, have all taken a big step-up. The game ran unbelievably smoothly considering th꧋e absolute chaos happening on screen at all times.
A few people I spo🍌ke with struggled with the demo gameplay at Gamescom. The controls were a little unusual, requiring a lot of button combos to pull off impressive combat. Rather than introduce us to an earlier part of the game, Pearl Abyss threw players directly into one of four boss fights. These were difficult battles, requiring dodges, parries, and combos to defeat. One of them, the Staglord, punched me so hard I fell through the map. Yet I enjoyed the brutal punishment, and a large part of that enjoyment came from knowing that these boss fights are just one aspect of Crimson Desert.
Rather than the structured portals that teleport players between boss fights in the gameplay demo, these boss fights are discovered in the open world, which means all of that extreme button mashing for the perfect combo will be balanced out by spending two hou🌌rs going fishing, or playing dice in a tavern. If Crimson Desert brings the brilliance of Black Desert Online’s life skills to a single-player game, without any sort of monetisation involved, and manages to fulfill the potential of its combat and storytelling, I think Pearl Abyss is on to something really special here.
Let’s Break Down The Crimson Deser☂t Gamescom T꧒railer
Crimson Desert stole the show in Opening Night Live, here's everything you might have miℱssed
