Who Crimson Desert has already been able to play complains about the controls. The complex key assignment is said to be unintuitive and deviates from known standards. However, behind this weakness lies a clear design philosophy.
What is the problem with the controls of Crimson Desert? Even at the play events at gamescom, colleagues complained about how complex and unintuitive the controls of Crimson Desert are. The action-adventure deviates from established genre standards and overwhelms players with countless functions, for which one has to press several buttons on the controller at the same time.
The key mapping in battles even resembles fighting games like Street Fighter with its many combos, throws, and weapon attacks. But even outside of combat, you have to press unusual key combinations to interact with NPCs or objects in the game world.
The latest preview event shows that while the developers made adjustments in detail after the criticism, they remain true to their fundamental design philosophy. On the other hand, it is now clear that players were not only overwhelmed because they were allowed to play a relatively advanced character at the time – the overwhelm sets in immediately at the start of the game.
GameStar colleague Michael Obermeier, who was allowed to play Crimson Desert for about 6 hours, explains on YouTube:
This control is quite overwhelming at the beginning. I would say it takes a lot of acclimatization, and I kept thinking while I was playing: God, I’m such an idiot. I can’t handle this at all. How embarrassing is that?
But then I talked to the other people who were there […], and everyone I spoke to said that the controls are pretty tricky. It requires quite a bit of adjustment.
This was obviously not just the case for Michael and his conversation partners; every other preview report from March 4, 2026, discusses the controls of Crimson Desert as one of the biggest, if not the biggest weakness.
On the YouTube channel of GameStar-Talk, a chat about the preview event with Michael Obermeier has already been released – take a look:
A Weakness with System
Why are the controls the way they are? In various interviews, the developers have already commented on the criticism of the controls and explained their design philosophy behind the complex key mapping.
- They want to give players maximum freedom and access to a variety of maneuvers in combat (Source: gamereactor.eu). The resulting complexity is not a problem but a feature – skill should be rewarded.
- Both in combat and outside of battles, you can interact with an unusually large number of objects in the game world in different ways. This would not be feasible with a simple 1-button mapping (Source: insider-gaming.com).
- Players will learn the countless functions and moves gradually, allowing them to familiarize themselves with the complex controls step by step (Source: YouTube interview with marketing lead Will Powers).
After 6 hours with Crimson Desert, colleague Michael also has an idea of why the controls must be as they are:
Maybe this is a problem that resolves itself after 20, 30 hours because you simply get used to it, and after this time it becomes clear to you why things are “strangely” mapped, because when you have all the abilities or all the features at the same time, then it might all make sense. […]
Michael Obermeier on GameStar-YouTube
Among these features is the ability to grab objects with a Zelda-like grappling hook and navigate them through the air, which is needed for puzzles or physics tricks in the world.
In combat, you also use melee and ranged weapons, unlock new active skills through the talent tree, select equipment and consumables from radial menus, and you can sneak, jump, and climb, and so on.
Whether Crimson Desert will be easier to control with mouse and keyboard on PC seems unlikely – as the developers recommend a controller at every opportunity. And since the developers stand by their design philosophy despite the criticism, not much will change in the basic controls by the time of release. What other observations players of the preview version made, you can find here: Previews of Crimson Desert are here – What the first reviews say about the action game with MMO scope
