Crimson Desert: Initial Thoughts
Last night, I spent the first 45 minutes after the launch of Crimson Desert, watching the 92GB pre-downloaded game files slowly decompressing and installing. I finally launched the game at about 10:50 PM GMT. I then waited a further 5 minutes while shaders were downloaded. It took me about 15 minutes or so to read through the various game settings and choose those that are optimal for my PC. I suspect even if you have a beast of a computer, you’re still going to have to spend some time tweaking settings. As for those players like myself with a gaming rig that is somewhere in the middle of the game’s specifications, be prepared to do a lot of fine tuning both within Crimson Desert itself and your Windows settings.
I can run the game at 2K with a mixture of Ultra and Cinematic graphics settings. I’m getting about 60 FPS when standing idle but the moment my character does anything substantive, the frame rate drops to about 40 FPS. However, this isn’t a deal breaker for me. Lengthy loading times are a reality due to the scale of the open world but the game plays animated sequences over them to distract from the waiting. The only technical issue I had initially was the game music intermittently cutting out while other audio, such as sound effects and dialogue, continued as normal. This was resolved by turning off “Signal Enhancements” within the “Advanced” tab of “Speaker Properties” in Windows.
Upon starting Crimson Desert, you’re dropped into the story of a rapidly unfolding conflict between two factions. There’s nothing unusual about this story telling trope but when the fighting starts you get a lot of on-screen information regarding combat that is hard to digest. Fortunately, this part of the game is effectively a tutorial so the enemies are relatively weak. Your character is injured and awakes in an unexplained realm which they traverse and thus learn the game’s various movement mechanics. They are subsequently transported back to reality, healed and acquire a mount which they use to travel to Hernand, the first major quest hub, to begin the main game. Upon arrival, a primary quest is granted but the player is free to start exploring the town and surrounding area. It is a reactively safe area so presents a perfect opportunity to start looking through the various menus such as inventory, quests, skills etc. There are a lot and this aspect of Crimson Desert along with some others make the game feel very much like a single player version of an MMO.
The combat controls for Crimson Desert on the PC are based around left and right mouse buttons, which are used for light and heavy attacks. These are appended by using the CTRL and ALT keys to guard and dodge. Other keys are similarly used for other abilities requiring your hand movement to be dextrous. There was a similar keyboard layout for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and I struggled with that initially, although I did finally master it. Apparently, if prefer to use a controller the layout used is incongruous and the keys cannot be re-mapped. Hence a game with an abundance of systems also has a complex control layout, making the initial learning curve quite steep.
This is why I think it’s important to take your time in the first major quest hub and take the opportunity to explore the immediate world and figure out the different ways to interact with it. Also to spend time familiarising yourself with the games systems. Crafting is an important part of the game, especially making consumable that buff your health. Although a single player game, Crimson Desert does not have the complex branching dialogue options of other RPGs. NPCs provide quest prompts in a more arbitrary fashion. Sometimes you may just hear some dialogue while passing them that provides a clue. You will frequently have to use your menu to organise your inventory and switch between equipment. These menus often have multiple pages, so you have to drill down to access the data you require. The game seems to provide only the most essential information via on screen prompts and encourages you to explore both the world, GUI and menus on your own.
Some players will find this initial complexity and the measured pace of the opening hours of Crimson Desert frustrating. If you’ve played Skyrim, then jumping into Witcher III is not a culture shock, because they are broadly similar with a lot of common systems. Crimson Desert is very similar to the initial pace of a MMORPG and I suspect that there is a requirement of a substantial time investment before the story elements, familiarity with the game’s systems and players confidence align. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised to learn in the next few months that a percentage of players who usually favour single player games, abandon Crimson Desert simply because it has a much more measured pace at the start of the game. I can also see old school MMO players warming to this title because there are so many parallels.
With regard to the games aesthetic and style, Crimson Desert is a singularly handsome game with an incredibly well realised world. The draw distance is very impressive. This is something that the game keeps in reserve until one specific sequence at the beginning of the story, where you cross a bridge and suddenly see a valley stretching out to your left. It is a stunning revelation and something that is already becoming a common point of note in the various YouTube videos about the game. The game certainly seems well optimised to accommodate as much graphical performance as possible. The sound design and ambient music is also very impressive. The voice acting for the English version is broadly very good, although a few performances remind me of dubbed Hong Kong movies from the seventies. Some of the language is quite choice as well and I was surprised to hear the use of the word “cunt” within the opening 5 or 10 minutes.
So far, despite quite a lot of fine tuning the game settings, my interest is certainly being held by Crimson Desert. It seems to be a huge game with a great deal of content. Something that will take months to complete. Furthermore, to accommodate the scope of its vision, the game goes about it in its own unique way. That may enthral some players and annoy others. I usually come to RPGs and similar games, several months after launch. Hence there are a wealth of player curated resources available, telling you come to complete quests, create and optimal build and where the best gear is located. This time round I have started playing right from launch and so I am flying blind by my own standard. Oddly for me, that is proving to be fun. It is also nice to play a game that hasn’t been designed around a relatively short life cycle. I suspect there is plenty of life in Crimson Desert and that it potentially could have the longevity of Skyrim. As ever, time will tell.
