Back in 2016, the Korean game studio Pearl Abyss released its first game, Black Desert, to American markets, where it became one of the most popular MMOs in the country. After its success, Pearl Abyss decided to develop the game’s prequel, Crimson Desert. They announced it in 2019, released a reveal trailer, and in 2021 released a gameplay trailer. 

After the gameplay trailer, they continued development, occasionally releasing news about the game, until earlier this year, when they started advertising it everywhere. For example, the first thing I heard about this game was a video on Instagram claiming the map would be twice as big as Skyrim, that there would be three player characters, and that you could RIDE A DRAGON. 

At first, I assumed the game would end up like others that make outlandish claims — possibly a scam or released in a barely playable state — and every new detail reinforced that assumption, until it was finally released.

When it launched, the game received some underwhelming reviews, with people complaining about the controls, the combat, and the slow story. However, when I finally played it, I was amazed at the gameplay. The story is fairly simple: the main character, Kliff, is trying to reunite his clan, the Greymanes, after an attack left them all scattered. 

The game has almost everything I wanted in a game: exploration, combat, minigames, and smaller things like fishing or mining. 

All in all, Crimson Desert is a fun game. While I agree that the story takes a while to get into (I’m almost 30 hours in and still haven’t really gotten to some of the other things, like the dragon), Crimson Desert still has enough for someone like me to enjoy, and i wholly recommend it for fans of games like Red Dead Redemption 2.