Crimson Desert is quite emphatic about Pywel’s size and scope, presenting it as an open world that you’re going to spend a lot of time in. While that’s always welcome news to us, we began to think about what that could mean when the inevitable comparison to the undisputed king of open worlds came along. Yeah, we’re talking about Red Dead Redemption 2.
You might think that the Wild West in its final stages has nothing to do with a land that’s been conjured entirely out of a fantasy. But there are structural similarities if you look deep enough beneath the surface of the two games. Klyff and Aurthur’s respective journeys are a core part of the experience, their destinations serving as bookmarks between chapters before another long trip begins.
At their surface, Crimson Desert and RDR2 are games in which the most enjoyable parts of the experience are the memories that you make along the way.
Exploring New Places
Pywel’s five main areas are a nice touch, each coming with its own distinct theme, such as the one where technological advancements give a distinct touch to the world and the lives of people living in it. It’s a great way to segment the map into more manageable chunks while introducing a bit of variety into the mix. RDR2 might not have segmented its world in such a fashion, but there’s no denying that there was so much variety and beauty in its take on the Wild West.
From swampy marshes where your gang makes camp to melancholically beautiful plains, abandoned settlements, vibrant towns, and peaceful plantations, there was always something to stop and marvel at, the view being as important as your reason for being there. There seems to be a lot of that in Pywel, too.
Crimson Desert logically recontextualizes the inclusion of varied landscapes, allowing it to mimic RDR2 whilst maintaining its own distinct identity and approach to the design of its open world. It also suits the exploratory framework it’s bringing to the table, just as RDR2‘s approach suited the story it was trying to tell and the experience it intended to present.
The Greymane base of operations is another common factor that’s handled a tad differently in RDR2. In both games, your base acts as a sort of hub where you meet and interact with important characters in the story and side content. It’s also where you can acquire resources you may need as you go about your adventures and don’t want to purchase them or farm them out in the open world. It’s a sort of safe space for when your character gets a tad weary of the long roads they take, and wants a place to call home where they get to kick back and relax before they set off again.
When they do set off, both Pywel and the Wild West are places where you just pick a direction and hop onto your horse, secure in the knowledge that the road is going to take you to something new, be it a human settlement or another mystery. The map acts as a mere guideline rather than a tool in which you simply mark places to tick items of a checklist in other titles, an approach that has its merits but doesn’t allow for a more creative approach to exploration.
Both Crimson Desert and RDR2 feature worlds that are designed to have you investing time and effort into experiencing all that they have to offer, and that’s a good thing for those among you who want an experience over a video game. But any open world also depends, not just on the places it takes you to, but on the people you meet along the way.
Building Bonds With The World’s Inhabitants
A crucial part of Crimson Desert is Klyff’s effort to rebuild the Greymanes after their ranks are drastically thinned by their rivals, the Black Bears. But restoring the beleaguered mercenary gang to its former glory is going to be an uphill task, as you’re going to have to seek out surviving members and potentially try to recruit new ones to your cause.
It’s an interesting contrast to Arthur’s desperate effort to hold the Van der Linde gang together in the face of Dutch’s paranoia and Micah’s betrayal. But both narratives lend a layer of emotional investment into the open world and your path through it, as you never know when a lead to an old friend or a new one is going to pop up.
Aside from friends, there is also the scope to meet enemies along the way in Pywel and the Wild West. Rival gangs like the Pinkertons in RDR2 were never too far away, and conflict was an inevitable part of the experience, as it was a chance for you to enjoy the excellent combat mechanics on offer.
That’s the same in Crimson Desert, with the Black Bears being a constant threat to your Greymanes and the world at large, their power-hungry nature requiring a hero to properly counter it. That’s you, and you’re going to be facing a lot of skilled warriors in Pywel, based on the glimpses of it we’ve seen.
But it isn’t all about friends and enemies. An open world is a massive place, and there are going to be people to assist or engage with in other ways. Again, both titles feature a world that feels alive, although we’re going to have to wait for the full game to see if Crimson Desert manages to emulate RDR2 well enough on that front.
But what’s certain is that engaging with the locals in any given area is going to give you a plethora of things to discover, with activities ranging from life-changing to mundane, based on who you talk to. And even when you’re feeling a little low on your social battery, just keeping your ears open could let you overhear interesting things about the world around you, and give you more reasons to get on your horse and track them down.
Both games shine on that front, as they do in terms of how illegal actions are similarly structured to draw attention to your character and have the legal system try to intervene. The people of Pywel and the Wild West are certainly a part of the charm that both their respective games bring to the table.
A factor we’re interested in evaluating is whether Pywel is able to function outside of its relationship to Klyff, akin to how the Wild West was steadily on the path to a more modern way of life, irrespective of Aurthur’s place in it. You only have to look at the gradual building of railroads to know what we mean. Could Pywel feature structures under construction that gradually get completed even if Klyff is halfway across the map? Could NPCs have actual lives like the mad scientist in RDR2? We’re very eager to find out.
But while we wait, there’s another point of intersection between Crimson Desert and RDR2: the stuff you get to do in the open world.
Keeping A Hero Busy
What do an outlaw in the Wild West and a mercenary in Pywel have in common? A lot of what they do can be counted as busy work, but it is essential to their success.
Klyff’s fate seems inextricably tied to Pywel and the Greymanes. The narrative does a good job of weaving him into the open world’s very fabric, while the open world has you treading its vast landscapes in his shoes to the extent that it’s going to be unlikely to find a place he hasn’t visited once you have a sufficient amount of time with the game. He is invested in its prosperity not because he’s programmed to be, but because the game gives us as many reasons as it can to feel an emotional connection with the land and its people.
Arthur’s story was similarly woven into RDR2’s world, making his travels feel not only immersive but authentic. The morality system and its impact on how you approached the world subtly influenced how things would turn out with your gang in the end. We hope that there’s a hint of that in Crimson Desert, with the chance to do what’s right by the Greymanes clashing with more immediate problems, but that’s just speculation at this point.
There’s also the way in-game economics makes you engage with the world around you to gather resources or go after hard cash to either purchase them, or perhaps find ways to produce them with suitable investments into skills or unlocks. Self-sufficiency is very much a possibility, with both games sharing systems that allow you to find ways to make anything you need, such as hunting, fishing, and, through good old-fashioned farming, via exploration.
A feature in Crimson Desert that’s there in RDR2 but is relegated to the story in Arthur’s world is the ability to send out Greymanes on missions. Arthur was only joined by his fellow gang members in scripted stories, but Crimson Desert builds on that beat to make you truly feel like you’re leading the Greymanes, a facet of the experience that adds to how immersive it can get.
An undercurrent to all these features is that engaging with either Pywel or the Wild West is never going to feel like a chore, or perhaps as fatiguing as some open worlds out there. You’re actively a part of the world in ways that are both personal and professional, and the narrative framework you’re given takes care of having you invested emotionally.
The activities might repeat themselves from time to time, but the reasons you do them all remain the same.
Similar Worlds, Differing Perspectives
While life in the Wild West was about the entropy of a way of life and its effects on the people who followed it, Pywel takes a focus on rebuilding and a future that’s markedly better than the past. They are worlds that are better savored than rushed through, more than just checklists of activities that you’re going to have to tick off one by one.
They aren’t just stories, but are actual adventures that no two players are going to experience in exactly the same way because they are built to be unique to you. Pywel may not be a reflection of actual history like RDR2’s take on the Wild West, but the design pillars propping it up are very real and are looking mighty similar to modern gaming’s best open world.
We’re hoping that Crimson Desert is able to be as effective in their use to let it emulate the size and scope that Pywel needs to make Klyff rise to prominence, and hopefully join Authur on the other side of a very attractive open world coin that would mean great news for those of you, and us, who love to get lost in our video games.
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.
