Crimson Desert

Pearl Abyss

What, did you think we would go a week without a major Crimson Desert patch? Please. This is Pearl Abyss we’re talking about. The developer has just announced that a new patch is coming over the weekend, and a few things that it will include, namely:

• New special mounts
• An extraction feature that will allow you to recover materials from equipment refinement
• And more!

“More” tends to be a lot more when we’re talking about Crimson Desert, but these other two are solid in their own right. Crimson Desert has been adding multiple mounts past horses for a while now, extending to boars, wolves, polar bears and deer. Now, you might be able to imagine what else they might add to ride. I’m thinking lions and tigers, but maybe even rhinos and elephants. They have also flat-out added new animals to the game, so who’s to say there might now be something we can’t even predict.

The refinement thing is more important than it may seem. One of the game’s remaining issues is that it costs an annoying amount of resources to “commit” to upgrading a piece of gear. Namely, six abyss skill points per item. That led me to play the game for 250 hours and still only max one single set for Kliff. Every new cool weapon or armor piece you find is essentially pointless, given the investment it would take to upgrade it, and the fact that the game doesn’t have transmog (which honestly may even be more important to add, and fix a lot of problems).

This new system would allow you to potentially not “waste” materials on gear you no longer want or use. I don’t know if it would mean getting those skill points back and not just the actual skins/metals and such, but the skill points are really the only thing that matters, given how valuable they are. You can easily go farm more copper or goat skins. Skill points are a much more limited offering.

I am genuinely running out of things I’d like Pearl Abyss to “fix” in the game, as they have addressed so, so many major problems with the game at this point. I think the answer here is that I simply want more content, but at that point, I’m really just talking about DLC. I’m certainly not opposed to more fun things like new armor, weapons, cosmetics and other features, of course (more photo mode options and transmog).

If you’re wondering why there is no outright roadmap for Crimson Desert, there was a great interview in The Washington Post from Gene Park where that’s addressed:

“Everything, patch-wise, content-wise, has been iterated in real time based on feedback, based on response,” Pearl Abyss PR and marketing director Will Powers said. “If you bake in a roadmap, you’re presuming. We are not baking in presumptions around what the players want.”

“We’re not onerous about, if an idea didn’t come from us, then it can’t be in the game,” Powers explained. “I think that’s something that [other companies are] too ego-driven a lot of the time to be able to accept other people’s ideas. It’s almost Silicon Valley-esque. A good idea can come from anywhere.”

Pearl Abyss, using their own engine and working tirelessly, means that if fans want something, fans get it. Often within days or weeks, which is frankly almost entirely unique in this entire industry. Great stuff.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.