While its critical reception may have been quite diverse there has been something alluring about Crimson Desert, leading to massive sales and players spending hundreds of hours in its open world. Arkane Lyon studio director Dinga Bakaba believes that this comes down to how Crimson Desert “functions opposite” when compared with other open-world games in a number of ways.
One of the core ways Pearl Abyss achieved this, he noted, was by getting players used to the “gameyness” of Crimson Desert quite early on. This includes aspects such as its control scheme, gameplay systems, and even other games that may have inspired it. The “magic” of the open world only starts kicking in after players have already spent a few hours with the game.
“Interesting how Crimson Desert functions opposite to most games of this type: generally the beginning is magical and after a while you start to see the strings ‘ah this is close to this game, oh this is going to be repeated etc,” he wrote on social media. “You start with the gameyness front loaded: the inspirations, the controls, the systems: it’s almost all you see. But after a while all this takes the back seat: magic kicks in and doesn’t disappear because you have already accepted the rules/constitutive elements.”
“It’s almost like the specific type of immersion of a board game where at first all you see is the board/rules but then you enter the magic circle properly and the real fun begins. And where it excels is at this point the game hasn’t thrown everything it has in store at you.”
Bakaba went on to praise the fact that Crimson Desert likes to introduce new aspects of its open world to players at a steady pace. He also noted that gameplay systems introduced in this way also happen to be quite “meaty” and fit into the larger world quite well. This helps players have more fun in their journeys, since they’re also constantly being rewarded for the time they spend with the game.
“It keeps on introducing new things, giving more significance to systems and making them interact with each other,” he wrote. “It doesn’t hurt that most of them are ‘meaty’ and realized diegetically, and that there is also some tonal liberties with some (smartly engineered) stupid fun.”
“This coalesces in a singular player journey from game to magic to discovery that might be why so many find investing time in it rewarding and “personal”. In a time of fast consumption, a game that is sticky because it has friction, and not because it’s smiley feels amazing.”
Crimson Desert was released on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S in mid-March and has since become quite a hit with players. Pearl Abyss recently confirmed that it had sold 4 million copies of the game. The fact that the studio has offered consistent post-launch support by releasing updates that address some of its biggest pain points, as noted by players, has also certainly helped. Check out our review for more details. And while you’re at it, take look at our own thoughts about why calling the game’s early parts “boring” misses the entire point.