Crimson Desert Enhanced

Despite its flaws, I genuinely recommend Crimson Desert to anyone who's really into video games. That probably needs a bit of explanation because I don't think this is a game for everyone. If you mostly play the big mainstream releases like The Last of Us or other PlayStation games, or you're mainly into sports games like FIFA or PES, I don't think you'll get much out of this. But if you're the kind of person who is really into gaming as a hobby and enjoys trying games that take ideas from a bunch of different places, I think this is absolutely worth experiencing. Crimson Desert feels like an amalgamation of several different games. Breath of the Wild, Dynasty Warriors, Read Dead Redemption 2 and Dragon's Dogma are probably some games that came to my mind the most while playing it. Somehow, despite how different those games are from each other, Crimson Desert manages to combine elements from all of them into something that feels pretty unique. The game is incredibly slow. I have to mention that because I can easily see it being a dealbreaker for some people. But personally, I didn't find the slow pace particularly boring. A lot of that comes down to the world itself. The map is easily the biggest strength of this game for me. It's absolutely massive and normally that would worry me because a huge open world doesn't mean much if there's nothing interesting to find in it. Surprisingly, Crimson Desert actually does a pretty good job of filling its world with things to do. The content can get repetitive, there's no denying that, but you constantly come across something. A puzzle, a little challenge, an encounter, some random location or something else that makes you stop and investigate. You can take a few steps in a completely random direction and find something to interact with. And that's what I like most about the game. It doesn't constantly feel like it's trying to push you from Point A to Point B. You can just exist in the world. You can climb a mountain because you saw something interesting up there, wander into a village, find a puzzle, start exploring some completely random area and suddenly realize you've spent the last hour doing things that had absolutely nothing to do with your original objective. The universe itself is also really interesting, although I have mixed feelings about how the game handles its worldbuilding. This is a fantasy world with humans, dwarves, orcs, half-giants, these strange ageless child-like people and a bunch of other fantastic elements. There are even mechs in the world, which is something I definitely wasn't expecting when I started playing. The problem is that the game doesn't really explain any of it. You just exist in this world and see all these different races going about their lives. You see a dwarf, but you don't really learn where dwarves came from or much about their culture. You encounter orcs, but there's very little information about their history. You see half-giants walking around but don't really understand what makes them different beyond the obvious physical differences. There is potentially a lot of interesting history and cultural depth here, but the game rarely explores it. And weirdly, I think this can be both a positive and a negative. I actually like the fact that the game doesn't constantly stop to explain its entire universe to you. It gives the impression that this is a world that already existed before you arrived and you're just another person living in it. Not everything has to be explained to the player. At the same time, I really wish there was more to discover. The setting has a lot of potential and sometimes it feels like the game introduces you to something really interesting and then just moves on without explaining it. The story itself has a similar problem. There is a story here and I actually think the underlying concept is pretty interesting. There's enough going on that you could have a proper conversation with someone who has played the game and discuss characters, events and things that happened. The problem is the writing and execution. A lot of the story feels poorly written and there are gaps where it feels like you're missing important context. Thankfully, this is something the developers seem to be actively working on. The 2.0 update, for example, adds new cutscenes and dialogue to certain missions to fill in some of these gaps. I really appreciate that because it shows that they're not just ignoring the problems with the game's story. And honestly, the developers' continued support is one of the biggest reasons I'm giving this a positive review. I played Crimson Desert at launch and I genuinely enjoyed it despite all the criticism about the game being unpolished. Was it perfect? Absolutely not. But I found it playable and, more importantly, fun. Since launch, the developers have continued releasing substantial updates. Not just small bug fixes and balance changes, but actual new content, new systems and new ways of playing the game. Because of that, I still see Crimson Desert as almost an early access game in spirit. It feels like a game that's still being developed and expanded rather than something that was released and then left alone. The visuals are also incredible. The scenery is probably one of my favorite parts of the entire game. I genuinely enjoy just travelling around, climbing things, exploring the environment and seeing where I can go. There's something very satisfying about simply moving through this world without necessarily having a specific objective. Performance is probably the weakest technical aspect. Sometimes it's completely fine and other times I have no idea what the game is doing. I'm playing on an RTX 2060 Super, so my hardware definitely isn't exactly cutting edge anymore, but I've still had a surprisingly good experience overall. It's not perfect, but the performance issues haven't been bad enough to ruin the game for me. Ultimately, I think Crimson Desert is a game for people who love games for what they can be rather than just people who want another polished AAA experience. If you want a tightly scripted experience that constantly tells you where to go and what to do, this probably isn't for you. But if you like sandbox games, exploration, freedom and the feeling of being dropped into a massive world where you can just decide what you want to do, I think there's a lot to love here. It's flawed, sometimes confusing and occasionally frustrating, but there's something about Crimson Desert that I really appreciate. It feels like a game made by people who genuinely wanted to build a world and let you play around in it. And for me, that's worth a positive review. This version keeps the enthusiasm but makes the profanity almost nonexistent, which I think actually makes the occasional blunt criticism hit harder.