With every new gameplay trailer, open-world fans discover new features and content that Crimson Desert wants to offer at release on March 19, 2026. The almost overly ambitious scope strongly reminds MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz of a successful role-playing game from 2025.
I still remember how it felt when we first got to play Where Winds Meet. That was in July 2025, a few months before the final release. I dove into the Wuxia world of the role-playing game with curiosity but also a bit of skepticism, and was blown away. By the enormous extent of the game, the countless features, systems, ideas, and content.
We quickly realized in the editorial team: This is completely different than expected, and unlike anything else. Despite the service model, its Asian peculiarities, and the overly nested menus there’s a special gem here that wants to bring together an incredible amount and does so surprisingly well.
The ambitions were rewarded. At one point alone on Steam, more than 250,000 players were simultaneously active in the world of Where Winds Meet. The rating there is at 87 percent positive reviews. 15 million players have tried the role-playing game worldwide by December 2025 (Source: X). Where Winds Meet is a huge success.
Crimson Desert from Pearl Abyss increasingly reminds me with every trailer of Where Winds Meet, which in my opinion retrospectively belongs to the best games of 2025.
Warning Signs and Overly Ambitious Plans
For Crimson Desert also approaches the final release with many question marks and potential skepticism:
- It was first announced as an MMORPG, but after many years of development, it is supposed to be solely a single-player experience now. An optional multiplayer mode might follow after launch. This transformation during development needs to be accepted by all players first.
- Crimson Desert comes from the developers of Black Desert. The MMORPG has clear strengths but is also repeatedly criticized for its monetization. Naturally, there are concerns about the payment model of Crimson Desert. Spoiler: It stays (for now?) with the purchase price. There is no cash shop and no microtransactions.
- At preview events, the complex controls revealed possible weaknesses. Often too many inputs are needed to carry out what should be simple interactions.
- Playable areas at the events were always clearly defined areas such as a boss battle or a challenge in a relatively small area. How the open world is constructed and feels can only be guessed at through trailers so far.
Like Where Winds Meet, Crimson Desert also comes with an incredibly long list of systems, activities, and features. Here are just a few things that immediately come to mind:
- The game tells a linear main story that guides you through the various zones of the vast world. There are said to be countless optional side quests, secrets, puzzles, and challenges.
- In addition to the main character, there are two other playable characters who should bring their own combat styles, skills, and weapons.
- While the appearance of the 3 characters is fixed, you can customize your heroes’ hairstyles, hair colors, and tattoos. The equipment can also be changed in detail in terms of color.
- There is a parkour system like in Black Desert, allowing you to climb, jump over hurdles, and move fluidly through the world.
- In combat, you have various wrestling moves such as throws available in addition to weapons, gadgets, and spells. You can also use the environment to your advantage in combat.
- You can build and expand a camp (similar to the camp from Red Dead Redemption, but with more housing features) where you can engage in farming or keep livestock.
- From the camp, you can send NPCs from your clan on missions. They can gather resources for you or weaken enemy fortifications while you roam in other areas of the game world.
- There are various mounts such as dragons, mechs, bears, or dinosaurs that can even assist you in battles. You will also receive tools to safely travel through the air without a flying mount. Wild horses can be tamed.
- You can expect activities like arm wrestling, archery competitions, gambling, or fistfights. You can interact with animals like dogs and cats.
- There is a crime system: Those who steal from people and are seen will rile up nearby residents and guards. Fines and jail time await.
- You can fish, hunt animals, and gather herbs, insects, ores, and other resources. With these, you can craft buff food, potions, tools, or equipment. Or you trade with NPCs in cities and villages to buy what you lack.
When Will Powers, Director of Marketing for Crimson Desert, explains in the Podcast “Dropped Frames” that one can comfortably spend hundreds of hours in the game world, it doesn’t surprise us at all given the long list of content.
An MMORPG Studio Does MMO Things in a Singleplayer Open World
The ambitious scope of Crimson Desert can, according to Will Powers, be traced back to the studio’s roots. Pearl Abyss thinks in MMO dimensions through Black Desert. That’s the DNA of the company.
Although the genre of Crimson Desert changed from MMORPG to a pure single-player experience, the developers still aim to create a vast game world where you can wonderfully lose yourself.
This also reminds me of Where Winds Meet, except that there is actually an optional MMORPG mode there that brings the social features of the role-playing game into focus. In this regard, Crimson Desert seems to be more focused. But this could make the game resonate even better with us in the West than Where Winds Meet.
As much fun as I continue to have with Where Winds Meet: Crimson Desert could be the better open-world experience for me. Due to the even greater single-player focus, the absence of a service structure and monetization, due to the setting that possesses western “Game of Thrones” vibes, and because I might enjoy the battles of the Black Desert developers even more. All reasons why I am hugely looking forward to Crimson Desert.
