“Crimson Desert is a game meant for PC gamers and doesn’t play well on consoles!”
Gamers! I am not going to lie, I have put off doing this review because well, just not a game I really want to talk about. Mainly, since Crimson Desert by Pearl Abyss is a cheap creative concept that plays off the backs of other games. Not to mention the fact that the CEO of Pearl Abyss gave an interview saying the game wasn’t released complete or where they wanted it to be. So, let’s just get into this…
1. Who am I, what am I, Oh just end it now. – As mentioned in the intro Crimson Desert is struggling creatively as if it was an over stimmed and over sugared “ADHDer” trying to speed write a creative writing assignment that is due in ten minutes and is 50% of your college degree. With elements of Fantasy mixed with Sci-Fi and a dash of Steam punk because sure why not. With a story line that reflects the writer binged watched The Witcher and any C list fantasy film they could find, throwing together yet another story of brooding emotionless people with grudges and trust issues, in world that was created from a free to play game that funded the whole project. Black Desert, google it, it sucked. Players who have never heard for Black Desert are left out of the loop about what’s going on other than a drab little intro to would be instantly canceled when shown to a focus group. Another Odin like God trying to make the broody edge lord character divine the ancient talents of alien magic science, so they can rebuild their clan and save the land from darkness. BORING! (I would like to point out that so many other creative aspects of other games like Dark Souls and Elder Scrolls Online, where used in this game and it would be most of this review to list what is glaringly apparent. Verging on plagiarism!)
I will give some small credit to Pearl Abyss for attempt something new, but its honestly not that new and wasn’t a well thought out plan. A free to play game is a good way to introduce new ideas to narrative world and can be a good way to generate a player base for a separate game that is used as a foundational work for the world you want to present to players on mass and really drawing in the crowds that generate a productively steady fan base. A free to play game is not a place to do a bulk of that narrative work in hopes it’s a break away, that’s due to the reputation free to play games have with in the gaming world as being extremely low quality, pay to win, and having extremely toxic player bases that you wouldn’t want a 35 year old interacting with, why would a parent want their child involved in that? This means the amount of knowledge about the lore is limited and less so than if it was a books series written by a very limited author.
It is one thing to be inspired by games and to be inspired by the world building abilities of other games and passed projects, but just like I say about the film industry, it’s the same old crap! Yep, academics abound have proven the point there are just so many different types of narratives one can spin to call it a story. Been that way since before the Greeks were making up Homer, my point is, you can’t just turn a narrative into a salad bar of ideas where you just take a bit of this and that to make something that looks good, just like going to a real salad bar, most of us get sick afterwards and want our money back. This shitty little rock that we call home has already been drowned in the culture of the masses, but that doesn’t mean other stories aren’t out there. Pearl Abyss is a Korean based company, so why not give us a story from the period before Korea was a unified kingdom with a magical twist based off the folklore of that time-period? Simple answer is greed, that won’t appeal to the millions of western white people who want to use a video game like this to fill in the gaps of their lives, I’m also supported in this point by the very interview the CEO of Pearl Abyss gave after the games release, admitting it was a mistake to release the game when they had. The game itself has had several updates to fix combat issues, game breaking bugs, and consent crashing for some players, all of which are signs of unfinished products being passed off as ready to consume. Rich people needed to make some money back after Yachting season and Gamers needed to foot the bill.
2. Too Much going on! – I personally have always been a hit the ground running style story narrative that draws the player into the needed urgency of the world you’re in, Crimson Desert on the other hands hints how this game will be only for it to be an aimless time suck of “oh look a kitty!” and doing the day to day chores of every farmer, serf, and chamber maid in 7 countries. Players will spend hours, upon hours wondering around on foot (because the damn horse is drunker than Nick Nolte in the 90’s.) for the most part or climbing up rock faces to get around. The need to learn 80+ cooking/craft recipes, the need to have every little piece of crap in the game picked up for the note saying it’s a thing, and the need for meaningless chores such as sweeping a floor. all little points of this game to distract the player and suck up hours of time, not to mention the silly feature of playing multiple characters at once. Get bored of the main character Kliff, you can sift through the 20 different tab menus to play as one of the supporting characters for a bit. Pearl Abyss has charged Gamers to play a scripted version of someone else free to play narratives, why? Because as mentioned before greed and poorly fleshed out story narratives have to be fortified by the “Shiny key” trick of all the little bits and bobs this game has added for no reason. Overall Crimson Desert showed a dwindling light of potential in the first few hours of gameplay, which was quickly washed away by chore quality errands and tedious hours of reading.
3. Damn Game Needs a Manual. – Gamers nothing gets my grumpy up faster than over complication and waste, Crimson Desert has a lot of both. It’s clear for the start up this game is meant for a very particular type of Gamer and marketed to the greater whole of Gamers, for its big break out. Which most of this type of Gamer being on PC and is largely formatted for the keyboard user. If you play on console all these functions are still formatted into the game, with the hopes that you have an extra finger and the delicate dexterity of a brain surgeon. Putting the player at a massive disadvantage if they are trying to feel a full since of agency in the game, making everything even more frustrating, that remapping of the controls is not a function supported for console players. Leaving me to assume as I have before, that this was just a great cash grab for the studio to make long term investors happy with some form of a return. Meaning rich people who don’t care for or play video games gave Pearl Abyss money to make a video game and then they went on vacation, now Gamers have to buy a product that was admittedly not ready, for a fan base that couldn’t support the numbers projected to pay back the rich people. So, players in mass are given a game that most are going to struggle to get anything out of because rushed developers didn’t get a chance to figure out how this design may not be beneficial to the accessibility of the players and how that effects the players ability to full enjoy the narrative created. Player shouldn’t have to worry about how long they need to press a controller button because some poor intern needs figure out how to put 86 command functions on a 14-button controller that it was not designed to support because “Daddy needed to buy a new car”.
In closing Gamers. Pearl Abyss should be praised for trying to fix their game that was released to early and actually listening to fans instead of blaming them for the poor play of the game. There have been numerous updates and changes to make the game better. That’s great, keep it up Pearl Abyss and in time this will be a better game even for consoles, much like Cyberpunk 2077. It’s also a good learning experience from a small studio trying to make a huge open world Triple AAA game on what not to do and not to release a game before its truly ready. Or at the very least have extensive beta play to get lots and lots of feedback on what needs to be updated before an actual release. Trying hard can’t always save you, but trying hard and listening to your audience goes a long towards not alienating your audience…something Ubisoft does all the time.
I have summed up about all I can, if you are a PC player and the kind of Gamer that only plays a single game at a time and does not have the largest desire to engage with any other forms of enjoyable media, you very well could get some much needed enjoyment out of Crimson Desert and I seriously hope you do enjoy it, the game was designed for you in mind, wicked jealous to be honest. But for everyone else in mind, I give Crimson Desert a 5/10. It’s a game meant for PC games and maybe one day will be okay to play on consoles…. we’ll see in 1 or 2 years. Now I must wash this all away with some beers and tasty slow cooked meats! Stay Crazy and Stay Classy Gamers!
