The great star: the game world
The trailers do not lie. The game world of Crimson Desert is huge, brimming with lovely details, and offers impressive panoramas from an elevated position, which I simply can’t get enough of.
Moreover, you encounter residents everywhere with whom you can interact. Meanwhile, countless small and large animals are scurrying through the wilderness. Pywel is alive. It’s just a lot of fun to explore the continent gradually on foot or on the back of a mount and uncover new, exciting spots.
You can navigate using the quest symbols on the map. Or you can do it like in Elden Ring, let your gaze wander into the distance, and simply head towards the most interesting point on the horizon. There are countless of these on the continent: soaring towers, for instance, sumptuous, gigantic cities full of NPCs, or seemingly abandoned ruins.
Or you let the sunlight reflect off your weapon and thereby uncover potential fast travel or artifact locations in the distance. Earned Abyss artifacts allow you to unlock new talents for the 3 playable characters. The fast travel teleporters save a considerable amount of travel time given the immense size of the game world.
The exploration of the world feels extremely motivating not only because of these rewards. New quest givers, tricky puzzles, challenging tasks, and exciting secrets await Kliff everywhere on the continent of Pywel. This could also be a destroyed fast travel platform hidden under a bush that he must repair to make it work.
In another place, the gray mane might discover an entrance to the depths concealed by thorny bushes. With the sword reflection or a fire arrow, he burns the access free, only to tumble into a deep dungeon full of traps, at the end of which awaits a completely optional boss fight. If you only chase quest symbols, you’ll miss a large part of the fun.
By the way, behind the physics play with the thorn bush in the style of Zelda: Breath of the Wild hides another fascination of Crimson Desert. Many puzzles, challenges, and hurdles in the world build on Kliff using his diverse set of tools and skills to find creative solutions himself.
Are archers attacking him from secure towers, which have no access? Find a way to destroy the towers or eliminate the ranged fighters in another way. A high wall blocks the way into a hostile fortress? Use the grappling hook to turn it into a catapult-slingshot and swoosh over the rampart like a cannonball.
It feels immensely satisfying when such a seemingly wild experiment works. Furthermore, I am already sure that the community will join forces on the usual platforms to solve the trickiest puzzles the game has to offer together.
