I absolutely love open worlds that satisfy wanderlust over merely crossing tasks off of never-ending checklists. And when I think of the ones that have stayed with me over the years, Skyrim is an obvious choice. I’ve never shut up about how great it feels to play, its flaws becoming a part of why I fell in love with it in the first place. It was one of those rare games where its imperfections were a part of its charm, becoming almost as iconic as the world in which you could lose hours of your gaming time before you remembered why you dived into the game in the first place.
Well, I now have a new game that elicits a similar discourse. One weekend with Crimson Desert was all it took to sell me on the entire experience, complaints and all. Yes, it’s quite a hard game to get your head around, and it does have issues that hold it back from being a true masterpiece (although that might not be the case if its developers continue to fine-tune it with the passion they’re currently showing). But how well it performs fades in comparison to how well it keeps me coming back for more.
And in the event I do go back to Pywel, I’m almost certain my efforts to restore the Greymanes to their former glory are going to be derailed by a myriad of distractions that stand between me and my next story objective. That’s the Skyrim vibe right there, and I’m glad to have found another world that invokes the same sense of joyous discovery every time I get to explore it for a few hours.
But how does Crimson Desert, a game that’s seen a rather slow launch managing to reproduce the magic of a title that’s far more popular? I’m glad you asked. Let’s get right to it!
Worldly Temptations
There’s something that both Pywel and Skyrim have in common, and that is their ability to make you forget that there was an important story beat that you were on your way to. It’s insane how both worlds can manage to draw you away from what you intended to do, and have you so deeply invested in something else you barely notice the time going by. There are so many examples of this in Skyrim that I’d need a whole evening to tell you about them, but I’m going to stick to my personal favorites for this one.
Let’s begin with Blackreach. I never thought a simple quest could lead me towards an enormous underground cavern so large it felt like an entire map all by itself. But of course, Blackreach’s size isn’t the only thing memorable about it. Hitting that orb outside the debate hall is firmly among my all-time favorite moments in my two and a half decades of gaming, that first meeting with Vulthuryol leaving me slack-jawed enough that I promptly took a break just to let myself calm down before I took him on. Blackreach is a great example of how Skyrim instils a sense of awe and makes great use of the wonder of discovery in open world games.
And then there’s the Frostflow Lighthouse. What looked like a mildly interesting coastal landmark became a full-fledged investigation into what befell Ramati and Habd, a couple whose interest in the place led to their tragic demise. It led to the Frostflow Abyss, a location in which I spent way too long fending off Falmers and Chaurus before I realized I’d forgotten something important that I was meant to be doing, the lighthouse meant to be only a short detour.
Crimson Desert has managed to pull off a similar feeling of small adventures becoming hours of entertainment in which you’re so completely involved, it’s hard to keep track or even care about your camp on Howling Hill. Take the bell towers for example. They’re not only a callback to Assassin’s Creed, but the way that they reveal just enough about the surrounding landscape without explicitly telling you what you could find is a great way to find new ways to enjoy the game. They’re across all major locations and tracking them down opens up so many new avenues for you to write some very memorable stories.
Take Arboria Castle, for instance. I thought I was indulging my love for well-made castles in video games when I first stepped into it. About an hour and a half later, I put down my controller and just thought about the multistage puzzle that unfolded in front of me. I was yet to make sense of its cultivation rooms, conveyor belts, and its entire industrial setup and that was okay. I knew I had a whole evening to sort through it.
Every Abyss Cresset or secret location in the game is similarly hidden away, just waiting for you to discover and engage with it for hours on end. I’m not forgetting how simply pushing against a mural on a cave wall led me to a puzzle that required I visit three different locations, and how looking for the solutions had me up way past my bedtime. Or wondering what would happen if I were to try stabbing past a waterfall only to find that my hunch was right, and to be rewarded with some cool gear in the process.
Both Skyrim and Pywel are places that gently push you away from sticking to the main path, and the stuff you’re likely to find along the way could have you travelling halfway across the world before you remember why you were there in the first place. But that isn’t the only way in which Crimson Desert matches up to Skyrim’s unique vibe.
Engaging Eccentricities
Looking at Crimson Desert from a critical lens, it would be easy to admit that it does have its flaws, objectivity and all that. But then again, so does Skyrim. That one was a game in which you could run up a mountain on foot if you couldn’t be bothered with sticking to the main roads. Your horse was similarly empowered to race along slopes that it had no business soaring along. Were these imperfections kind of immersion breaking? For sure. But were they also a part of the game’s charm? Indeed!
I’m not going to forget Frostflow for the exploit where keeping a cellar door locked and aggroing enemies on the other side was a great way to level up your Sneak ability. Why didn’t the Chauruses on the other side think to break the door down and hunt down the Dragonborn who so foolishly disturbed them? We’ll never have an answer to that question but I think that it’s rather unfair for the gaming world to come down so hard on Crimson Desert’s flaws when there’s another great open world that’s just as quirky.
Although I must concede that Crimson Desert’s problems were ones that actively interfered with the gameplay experience. It can get annoying to see Kliff jump when all you wanted him to do was interact with that nearby cooking pot so you could make yourself some much-needed healing items. It’s no coincidence that the developer was so quick to attempt to refine the controls. It was an acknowledgement that there were some quirks that could actively derail players trying to have a good time in a sprawling digital fantasy setting.
The inventory situation was another issue that I found hard to ignore, and another one that the developers have addressed with blinding speed. And yet, I’d already found ways to cope with an inventory that filled up almost constantly. However, it’s easy to see how that could cause friction for players who just want to pick up all the loot they find, and hoard until they roll the credits, or Pywel fades into myth.
But despite those issues, Crimson Desert’s found players willing to defend it as resolutely as Kliff stood by his fellow comrades. Its flaws became a part of why it was special, encouraging its players to find their own ways to deal with them that went past “getting gud” to build an online presence that fostered communities devoted to teasing out the maximum possible value from Pywel. Those annoying puzzles, which players were quick to call intuitive, somehow managed to become a part of life In Pywel, and my fellow Greymanes in the real world didn’t care about how annoying they could be in the slightest.
It’s rare to see what would otherwise be considered nonsense manage to bring a game’s players together in the way that Skyrim and Crimson Desert have achieved. They are worlds that draw you in so well you’re willing to deal with them on their terms, no matter how stubborn they might seem to be. There’s also the question of how easily they keep you around to consider.
It’s All In The Scene
One of my favorite parts of Skyrim was its ambient music. Even the thought of it had me pulling up a playlist, which I’m listening to as I write this. Tracks like Far Horizons, and Frostfall bring back so many fond memories of times spent in Skyrim, while they’re quite well-composed tracks on their own. Every track matched the scene it was punctuating, be It a melancholy walk through a cold world in which the only peace you could find was the type you carved for yourself with violence, or just wandering through moonlit roads on your horse, wondering where your next day would begin.
Skyrim’s music helped underscore its almost ethereal beauty, the perfect score for a fantasy world that seemed so beautiful on the surface despite hiding all of the turmoil and chaos its players would uncover on their travels. It’s easy to see why its soundtrack was so well-received by critics and players alike.
Crimson Desert’s music isn’t on the same level, but does manage to be comparable while helping set the scene for the kind of experience it tries to present us with. Its soundtrack has been called “top shelf” by critics, with praise being directed towards its voice acting, and the sense of mystery that finding the Abyss invoked thanks to the tunes that accompanied them. There was even praise directed at ambient sound effects despite the same review coming down rather hard on the rest of the game. That one was proof of how good sound design can help sell a journey, even when there are minor issues like abrupt tonal shifts in the event you begin an interaction like cooking or visiting a shop.
It’s probably why Crimson Desert’s soundtrack doesn’t achieve the highs that Skyrim has managed, but it’s still a part of why Pywel continues to be an equally attractive option to open world players, myself included. I’m going to be happy as long as I can put down my controller and just listen to the music, letting it take me right into the world it’s trying to sell to me. And on that front, I can say both games have done very well.
Different Worlds, Similar Emotions
It’s so easy to compare Crimson Desert and Skyrim as open world titles that truly feel like they’re open world. They’re that rare breed of title within a crowded genre that aren’t afraid to demand patience and investment from their players, while rewarding the ones who are willing to engage with them on their terms.
It’s worlds like Skyrim and Pywell that can keep players spending hours on end within their confines, uncovering their secrets for years long after others have moved on to newer titles. I’m definitely going to be spending a lot of spare time in Pywel, perhaps even continuing to do so for many years to come. And that is something Crimson Desert has managed to invoke, thanks to how intelligently it has emulated one of the genre’s finest titles.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.