It’s been a busy week, and an enjoyable one, diving deep into Crimson Desert. Boy oh boy, has it been fun to take on Kliff’s battle to bring the Greymanes back to their former glory, the land of Pywel being one I’m leaving only so I can tell you about it. Rest assured, I’ll be jumping back in right after I dive into what’s great about this fine addition to the open world genre.
I’m a fan of massive maps that don’t feel like they’re giant checklists, and this one definitely fits that bill. It exists only as a stage upon which you decide the direction you’re going, with the world taking you on a path of its own so organically that you actually have to pay attention if you want to remember what you set out to do.
I’ve felt like it’s a different adventure every time I’ve left my camp, the game letting me loose to do anything I desired except take a focused trip between point A and point B. I love an open world that makes the journey mean more than your destination, and this one’s definitely up there with the best. Allow me to explain.
Roads To Adventures
Crimson Desert’s traversal is a reward all on its own, especially once you unlock the ability to glide along to the ground after leaping off great heights. But it’s equally viable to hop onto your horse and set off down a road that’s completely the wrong way from your objective.
For starters, Pywel’s an absolutely gorgeous land to be travelling across. I spent a fair bit of time just stopping to admire the sights, be it across open fields, mountains, cliffs, forests, settlements, and cities, or rough terrain. It’s all rendered so well that this one’s an eye-catcher. That’s probably the first thing that’s going to distract you from your objective, but it definitely isn’t the only one.
Getting across the lands of Pywel to new places means you’re going to have to figure out how to navigate different biomes with varying terrains, making each trip feel like a trek all on its own. It’s a very good thing that the entire map is designed to make simple travel feel so memorable.
You have to work to make the best use of your gliding abilities to access out-of-reach places as you hurtle down from the heights of the Abyss, and you’re almost always going to spot something else that catches your eye and makes you change your plans halfway through your descent. Getting there means you ration out your stamina, using the world’s physics to get you in the vicinity of the ruin or enemy camp that distracted you from where you initially planned to go.
It gets better as you unlock more ways to get around, and the incredible draw distance adds to the sense that you’re actually travelling across a fantasy land that’s quite spellbinding.
When The Journey Is The Point
If you’re like me, you’re going to find yourself just setting off in a random direction every chance you get. For instance, in my attempt to get to the enemy camp I spoke about earlier, I found my stamina didn’t let me drop on it from above as I intended to. I landed somewhere in the vicinity and promptly forgot all about the camp as I ended up pursuing another distraction.
It was only about an hour later that I remembered why I was in the area in the first place. Just picking a point of interest on your map and letting the world guide you to a host of adventures on the way is always a great design pillar for an open world, and Crimson Desert has you covered on that front.
You’re constantly pulled off the main path, and there’s always a hidden cave or an ancient ruin to explore nearby. It’s so easy to get distracted as you flit between things to do in Pywel, all of which are presented to you so organically that it feels entirely immersive.
It’s the fact that exploring the world isn’t a sort of filler between story missions, a facet of open worlds that feels quite dated with games like this one around. To have uncovered more of the world fold back so neatly into the rest of the experience makes exploring Pywell feel like a natural extension of the gameplay loop, and a very enjoyable one at that.
I said that the journey means more than the destination a little earlier, and Pywel is a fictional place that acts as living proof of that sentiment. However, it distinguishes itself from some of its peers in one very important way.
Good Things Come With A Learning Curve
To elaborate more on how each journey to an unknown spot on Pywel’s large landscape feels like a trek, it’s because you’re going to have to work to get across the land. The game doesn’t really hold your hand and is content to nudge you in the direction of something interesting, letting you figure out how to get there.
The weather could work against you, or the terrain, impeding your progress and leading to moments where I genuinely stopped to think about how I could reach a certain area. The Abyss is a great example, with some traversal and platforming puzzles that don’t come with do-overs, as a mistake sends you plummeting to the lands below, where you’re bound to get diverted to something else.
There might be an unexpected field boss waiting for you in an enemy camp, forcing you to contend with some rank-and-file opponents even as the boss unleashes its fury with a string of attacks that you’re going to have to contend with to stay in the fight. The surprise element of finding a threat that’s beyond your current skill is very much in operation in Pywel, and it’s something I began to anticipate a lot.
There’s also some excellent verticality to Pywell’s various biomes, further adding to the learning curve and leading to moments of small joys when you finally figure out how to get to a place you might have spent a considerable amount of time trying to access. There’s a strong emphasis on spaces like cliffs and mountain routes that make exploration feel involved, and discovering new spots feel earned. It’s honestly among my favorite parts of the open world and one of its biggest strengths.
In Crimson Desert, the world is something you contend with, and finding new ways to interact with it as your pool of abilities grows is one of the most satisfying ways to tie progression with the game’s RPG trappings. You actively feel like every new way to pull off your traversal abilities opens up opportunities for more fun, further compounding the feeling that no two days are alike in the lands that Kliff calls home.
If venturing off into the unknown and going where the road (and the skies in this case) takes you are things that you find enjoyable in open worlds, this one has you covered. You can be sure that things are going to be pretty eventful along the way.
A World Of Our Own
It’s become clear to me that my time in Pywell is going to be vastly different from yours if we were to compare the things we’ve uncovered over time. There’s going to be exclamations and all-caps texts between friends playing this one, the discovery of something new prompting a lot of related exchanges.
Between the emphasis on exploration, an impeccable approach to discovery, the challenges that come with it, the verticality, and the general atmosphere that Pywell manages to convey, Crimson Desert does very well as an open-world title that presents a grand adventure. The story is just one part of a much larger world in which simply existing means hours of fun-filled adventures. And that’s why I believe this is one of the best open worlds I’ve had the pleasure of engaging with, and I’ve played nearly all of the big ones.
Pywel feels special because it’s been meticulously designed to stay at your side to point you towards entertainment over a fixed path through the main campaign, with some side content thrown in. Instead, it’s a world that feels alive in ways that breathe life into the gameplay loop it aims to encourage.
It’s a world that feels special simply because engaging with it feels personal, with your journey coming with the feeling that you’re actually one man looking to rebuild his life in a world that can feel unforgiving, but comes with opportunities to get better at participating in it. This is an open world that’s going to be remembered for a long time to come, and that’s almost wholly thanks to how the memories you make in it feel like they are your own.
Now, excuse me while I go and explore the black smoke in the distance, which I’m quite certain is a new settlement with new adventures waiting for me. I could be wrong, but that’s just a part of Pywel’s charm, and I’m happy to take it in my stride.
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.