Pearl Abyss first announced its sophomore game in 2020 with 4K high-quality gameplay footage. Since then, Crimson Desert hasn’t really left my mind. That said, the mystery has been a part of the building anticipation for the game. While the developer has released a significant amount of gameplay footage since its announcement, I haven’t gone out of my way to hunt it down.
Before attending the demo at the Pearl Abyss studio, I knew it was single-player, and I knew that the Celtic and Norse iconography that appears behind the title on the key art was signally a game that went beyond just medieval England-inspired fantasy that we see in the developer’s MMO Black Desert Online. That was about it. This wasn’t because I wasn’t interested. No. It was because after spending so much of my time in film festivals where I let trailers and PR material set expectations for films I made the decision to walk into media without much and, in doing so, let the media speak for itself. And man, Crimson Desert was loud.
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In Crimson Desert, you play Kliff as he investigates events that transpire across the region of Hernand and embarks on a journey of exploration through a vast open world. An open-world action-adventure game, the story focuses on mercenaries fighting for survival on the expansive continent of Pywel.
After spending much of my time this past month playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard and falling in love with the quick single-button press combat and pause-and-play strategy, I wasn’t sure how the combat in Crimson Desert would feel. Sitting down at the table preparing for the demo, the sheet next to me had a series of combos that looked more like a fighter move list than combat inputs for an action-adventure game.
However, once I jumped into the game, the combat immediately took hold. The choice to make the combat in Crimson Desert combo-based is its strength. This choice also keeps the player from button-mashing — which is sometimes my default in a new game when I encounter my first mob of enemies. With anxious hands, I tried to find my grounding, but I couldn’t until I looked to the guide at my side. Once it was established that my combat choices needed to be thorough, everything clicked into place.
There is a set of combos for kicks, sword swings, and grapples (that include the perfect pro-wrestling suplex,) as well as your magic abilities. Add in blocking and parrying with your shield and judging when to use your bow, and there is more than enough learn and work into a paced rotation against enemies. That said, when you’re being attacked from all sides it’s better to use the interactive environment to your advantage to take some of the anxiety away. However, as interesting as combat against average enemies is, Crimson Desert’s boss design (both visually and mechanically) has turned the game into one of my most anticipated.
In just under 90 minutes, I found my footing and then proceeded to fight and hopefully defeat four bosses. Broken down by the length of time expected to defeat, the four bosses represented the game’s different fight styles and aesthetics. The Reed Devil, White Horn, Staglord, and the intimidating Queen Stoneback Crab. When each boss was explained to me, I decided to tackle them by going with the style I’m the most used to down to the ones I am not.
My preview began with White Horn. The creature design with this first boss is breathtaking. A folkloric beast that reminded me of some Korean webtoon renditions of the haetae, it beautifully highlights the variety of folkloric elements, even in a heavily Celtic and Norse-inspired game. A snowy creature on a mountain with horns, White Horn’s fight style is what you’d expect. With a lot of charging, more than a few areas of effect (AOE) attacks, and a weather event that rains down dangerous ice, dodging is your biggest strength. Well, that and explosive arrows.
Once you figure out White Horn’s rotation, avoiding him is the easiest part, but when your combat relies on combo inputs, it can get difficult to know when you have a window to attack and when you’re getting greedy and going to suffer the consequences. That keeps the difficulty engaging without ever making the boss feel overwhelmed. Explained as being one of the easier fights, smart use of ranged attacks and big heavy attacks deal enough damage to get you through, but the most fun part of the boss fight is that you can climb White Horn’s back and inflict damage while attacking with one hand and holding onto his fur with the other.
After White Horn, I took on Crimson Desert’s Staglord. Dressed in Celtic armor with gorgeously ornate weaponry (that you can collect upon beating him,) Staglord is a sword-and-board boss. Since you play as Kilff who also uses the same weapons, much of the fight is best done by dodging into a parry and then landing a post-parry attack to deal the most damage.
That said, blocking Staglord’s attacks has to be strategic. He doesn’t hit as many times as White Horn before him or the boss after him, but it takes away large chunks of your health when he does. Even when you block, the chip damage from the blocks does add up, with an unblockable attack putting you at a disadvantage if you choose to take the hit.
The Staglord’s pacing and rotation are easy to nail, but to defeat him, you have to settle into your own rotation. For me, that meant using my have-attack combo any time he staggered back after a successful parry. My health dropped dramatically when I spent too much time trying to vary my combos or got greedy.
Both White Horn and Staglord are slower boss battles, but neither feels stale. Instead, they force the player to learn the boss fight and their different phases, and ultimately practice and then execute a successful rotation in order to come out on top. That said, combat styles and the combos that come with them are personal choices each player will make. But the way that each heavy-hitting boss moves to a rhythm makes syncing with their attacks and finding their telegraphs extremely engrossing.
While the first two bosses play off of each other well, the last two offer a stark difference in combat strategy and introduce new mechanics.
My third boss battle was with the Reed Devil. A vision out of a Robert Eggers film, the Reed Devil, is about stealth and speed. The boss uses clones and distractions to keep you from finding your footing in the fight. While he doesn’t do the damage that the two previous bosses dealt, the speed with which he dishes out multiple stikes causes a “death by a thousand cuts,” which was how the reps in the room described in. Additionally, he summons wicker totems that must be destroyed while you take damage from the Reed Devil the entire time.
My strategy? Just hit him. Essentially, keep the gap closed so that when he disappears and reappears, it’s easier to locate him. Ultimately, the Reed Devil feels like a boss you have to burn through lest he take chip after chip of your health until you have nothing left. This one is less about dodging and more about letting go of being afraid of taking damage and meeting it when it comes.
Across the first three bosses, combat is the focus. Stay alive. Do damage. Just beat it however you can. But for Queen Stoneback Crab, well, you can’t do any of that. While some may find this boss design too disparate from the rest of the boss line-up, its inclusion in the demo is ambitious and shows off the boss variety in a truly splendid way.
For Queen Stoneback Crab, you have to break formations that guard weak spots, deal damage to the weak spots, and then finally perform a very specific combo to break the chimney on top of her head. Awakened and seemingly in pain, breaking the chimney settles her and lulls back into becoming a part of the gorgeous landscape. While there are only three steps to completing the boss battle, its time designation is long. Queen Stoneback Crab is all about finesse and understanding the mechanics. You have to time your combo and understand just how far to swing, the right time to deal damage, and honestly, the right time to wait.
Truthfully, I didn’t beat this boss in one try. I mean, I didn’t even beat her in ten tries. But the challenge that Queen Stoneback Crab’s “battle” was never frustrating. Instead, almost like a good Soulsborne game, I learned a little more each time I failed. Leaning forward in my chair, I tried and tried and tried, and then, finally, I got it. At the time of my demo, I was the first journalist to clear the boss (though I’m sure I’m not alone now, a week from the demo). The only time you come close to dying is if you are stuck under the boss’s feet.
Understanding that not all boss battles will require brute strength lends to the exploration-first design of the game. The world has different rules for what you will encounter, and it is exceptionally exciting to think about what the final game will hold. As much as combat is about killing enemies, it can also be about solving puzzles. When you combine that with the combo structure, the level of engagement that Crimson Desert offers is an immediate reason to add this to any most anticipated list.
While defeating the four bosses in the Crimson Desert demo got me hooked because of the combat, I’d be remiss not to mention just how beautiful the game is as a whole. Developed on Pearl Abyss’ proprietary next-generation BlackSpace Engine, the game’s hyper-realistic character models never faltered in combat or out of it. Kliff remains gruff and expressive, and the combat animations are sharp, but the ragdoll mechanics are more fun when White Horn or the Staglord send you flying. Add in the seamless transition from cutscene to gameplay, and this demo sets a high bar for the game’s full release.
Even more exciting is how vibrant the interactive environment and landscapes are. While the demo only highlighted a small portion of Hernand, what was in the distance may be the game’s largest feature for investment. I would look at the world when I would get popped off of Queen Stoneback Crab’s back. When up in the air, you can see the horizon, the trees, the spires, the changing biomes, and all of it is a place you can go. The expansiveness of the world is something that seems like it can keep giving, and I’m waiting for the chance to explore it.
As a whole, Crimson Desert is strong. Its combat feels fresh and doesn’t allow you to disengage in an extremely exhilarating way. With the release date still a mystery, Crimson Desert is one to look out for.
