Crimson Desert is a chaotic open world game with unusual combo-focused controls

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Crimson Desert was originally announced six years ago. At the time, it was described as an "open-world MMORPG set in an epic-fantasy world". Sure, that made sense. I presumed it was some sort of follow-up to Black Desert, the studio's prior entry, and the new game had a somewhat uninspired title variation to indicate a new product. Nothing too surprising. (Whatever happened to DokeV, by the way?)

A year later, when Crimson Desert reappeared, it was described as "a massive open-world action-adventure game, with content designed for both solo play and multiplayer." I understand the desire to avoid using the term "MMORPG". To certain audiences, there's a connotation there that could immediately detach interest in the game, hence the specification to state "solo play" so single-player-minded people might maintain attention in the title. However, the terms "RPG" or "role-playing" were nowhere to be found. 

After a lengthy delay, Crimson Desert reappeared at Gamescom Opening Night Live 2023. It came with yet another new description, stating the game is an "immersive, open-world action-adventure game." At this point, even after watching several extensive gameplay trailers, I basically had one question: "What is this game?" Is it an RPG anymore? Does it still have online or multiplayer components? When is it coming out?

OK, maybe I had more than one question.

All that is to say, Crimson Desert was present at this year's Summer Game Fest Play Days, and I finally had a chance to play a demo of the game for myself while speaking with Pearl Abyss to answer all my lingering questions after years of build-up.

Crimson Desert is a single-player adventure game. As far as I know, there are no multiplayer components. As far as role-playing goes, there is equipment with some basic stats, but there is no EXP, and there are no levels. During my demo, the Pearl Abyss spokesperson stated that while there might be some light role-playing elements, they're hesitant to call the game an "RPG" since it doesn't have many emblematic components of the genre.

After a quick introduction scene, where I was tasked with finding a fellow "greymane" from an enemy encampment, I am quickly launched into a massive war battle, where dozens of my allies are fending off hundreds of foes. It's very clear that Crimson Desert is proud of its sheer scale, with NPCs both friend and foe all over the place, and the game's real-time physics engine dictating how towers and other structures are crumbling around me (or so said Pearl Abyss). The whole sequence was chaotic, and honestly, a little overwhelming.

Pearl Abyss told me that while players might have an instinct to defeat every enemy that comes their way, this is not how you should approach these sorts of battles in Crimson Desert. You are given an objective in the battle — in my case, to destroy towers and cannons across the battlefield — and you should only take out the foes in your path as you make your way to the objective.

Since Crimson Desert is not an RPG, you don't tangibly gain much for defeating enemies, besides the off chance for some loot. In a way, killing random mooks felt like a waste of time, since you don't earn anything for felling them and reinforcements were numerous. I probably made an over-correction, deciding to run by enemies entirely and bee-lining towards my objective, although this led to dozens of foes chasing me down as I ran to the objective as fast as I could.

My biggest hurdle during the demo was getting acquainted with the game's controls. Unlike many action games on the market today, Crimson Desert was inspired by fighting game combo controls when it came to its combat system. Instead of having a more standard system — such as button for light attacks, a button for heavy attacks, and maybe some skills attached to face buttons — Crimson Desert requires the player to memorize certain button combinations to take full advantage of their arsenal.

I'll admit, my time with Crimson Desert's demo felt a bit clumsy. Just like how fighting games take some practice to understand the timing and positioning of your moveset, it felt like I needed some practice with Crimson Desert's combat. At one point, I needed to take out a tank by vaulting into the air, jumping onto my glider, falling onto the tank, and destroying it with an aerial attack. The timing of the button combination to do this isn't especially difficult on paper, but figuring out the precise method to do this all while avoiding the chaotic onslaught of enemies and artillery was tricky in the moment.

It's not as complex as fighting game inputs, but some rhythm and timing are still involved. During my hands-on with the demo, I quickly learned that pressing L1 + R1 triggered a sort of stun-flash with my sword, stopping enemies in their tracks. R1+R2 generated a powerful down-swing, various face buttons combinations allowed me to feint enemies, and another led to a wrestling-like body slam.

You can combo abilities into each other, too. At one point, I vaulted off one enemy and slashed another mid-air, although I'm not exactly sure how I did that as I was admittedly just button-mashing a bit.

On its face, it's not a big surprise that the controls felt awkward as I was coming in cold mid-demo with no tutorials or warm-up period. I figure the proper game would more slowly ease players into the different sorts of combinations available. However, some control oddities stuck out as probably needing to be a little bit more intuitive, as they felt needlessly complex, even out of battle.

One part of the demo required me to pick up a huge flagstaff and place it on its pedestal. I figured this might be a few contextual button presses, but I was wrong. In order to complete this task, I had to:

• Press both sticks in (L3+R3) to enter a sort of superpower mode.
• Face my camera at the fallen flagstaff and press □ and X at the same time.
• Repeatedly mash the X button to raise the flagstaff with this telekinetic superpower that main protagonist Kliff apparently has.
• Press △ to grab the flagstaff once it was far enough off the ground.
• Move over to the pedestal, look at it with L1, and press X to place the staff in it.

I initially felt I was clumsy with controls simply because I hadn't had a chance to warm up to them, but sequences like these make me reconsider - maybe things should be streamlined a little bit to be somewhat intuitive.

The were a few other slight control annoyances throughout the demo, too. In order to talk to an NPC, getting near them wasn't sufficient enough. You have to get close to them, hold L1 to enter a sort of "dialogue stance", face them, and then hit □. Not only that, sometimes the game wasn't especially clear which NPC I needed to speak with the progress. When you have dozens of soldiers wearing the same armor that all kind of look the same, I would hope the user interface would more clearly point me to the mission-critical one.

At the end of my demo, I opened up my game map to see many percentages and some sort of collectible meter with more than 1000 entries. While some of these interface elements were blocked for the purpose of the demo, it's clear that Crimson Desert's world is massive, and those who love to explore every inch of these lands will have a gigantic hurdle to surmount.

Crimson Desert is set to launch in 2025 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam). Even after playing an hour-long demo, I'm still not exactly sure what to expect from it. It's definitely impressive in its scope, and it seems to have unique flair in its combat design.  Ultimately, I'm uncertain how well it'll all come together, and I'm not sure if fine-tuning is all it needs.