Bounty Hunting in Crimson Desert is often more trouble than it’s worth, but there are some easy ways you can make it significantly less troublesome and worth your while.
How Bounties Work
Anytime you enter a new city, you’ll see wanted posters plastered over every billboard and light post for bounties, which list their crime, their whereabouts, and the reward for capturing them, dead or alive.
You can also run into bounties before you’ve seen their wanted poster and apprehend them right then and there, but that’s pretty rare.
Once you find them, you have to apprehend them. They never come quietly. If you choose to kill them, you will only get half the pay when you turn them in, and you don’t get paid until you turn them or their corpse into a constabulary.
The reward is always just some amount of Silver that’s somewhat governed by the amount of money you’re expected to have by the time you reach that region, but also the weight of their crime and the distance from the city.
There is no extra reward for capturing all bounties in a region or in the entire game. Bounties are simply a way to make some extra money.
How to Take Two Bounties at a Time
You can load one bounty on the back of your horse and carry another, so you can cut down on the number of trips you have to take.
Hand the one you’re carrying over to the constabulary first, then take the one off the horse and hand that one over. Sometimes, the horse teleports a few steps away because of the cutscene.
What to do when the Bounty Isn’t There
The unlawful have schedules just like the law-abiding do. Sometimes, a bounty isn’t present at the location marked on your map when you track the quest. Rarely, you can run into them elsewhere by coincidence, but it’s best just to check back in at a different time of day.
It’s easier to scout the vicinity by looking at your minimap and checking if there’s a little icon that looks like a wanted poster. This shows you the exact location of your target. If you don’t see it on the minimap as you explore the marked area, check back later.
This is a great opportunity to switch characters. You can summon one near the marked location and they usually stay in the general vicinity, though they do wander.
For example, you’re playing as Kliff, but the bounty isn’t there when you arrive. Summon Damiane, switch to them, then disband the group. After that, switch back to Kliff and go about your adventuring. Periodically switch back to Damiane who should still be close-ish to the place on the wanted poster.
Constabularies
Catching criminals is only half the battle. You have to turn them in, too. Constabularies are located at each major city and scant few outposts in Pywel.
The quest objective will always point you toward the one in the city that issued the bounty, but you can take criminals to any constabulary and still get full credit.
Usually, the marked constabulary is the closest, but the most distant bounties are sometimes closer to another one. Be sure to take a peek at your map before you set off.
The longer treks are a great opportunity break out the Riding Attire so you can level up a horse you just tamed faster.
How to Stop Bounties from Talking
A lot of people dislike that captured criminals won’t stop yammering the whole way there, but if you don’t keep them alive, you lose half your pay!
I think it’s good to listen to all the lies and excuses they spout so you can refine your personal BS detector and be more resilient against scammers and grifters who try to pull the same kinds of stunts.
That being said, there is a surefire way to silence the criminals and make it much easier to catch the lowlifes that run with a crew.
Sleep Arrows will knock out their target with a single shot, and bounties will remain asleep until you turn them in, meaning they stay alive and quiet for the whole ride. You also get to skip the punchtime chit-chat, which is essential for capturing members of organized crime.
Sometimes, you’ll need to catch a criminal, but they’ll be with their gang. The guy knows he’s wanted, so he’ll run, but if you try to tackle him, the others will go after you while you’re knocking his lights out.
The Sleep Arrow ensures you can neutralize him before he can escape and still have time to dispatch his accomplices.
You can find Sleep Arrows in the Wayward Woods of Pailune and send out a Mission Dispatch to have your fellow Greymanes craft them for you at Longleaf.
Once you have a couple of Infinite Arrows Abyss Gears, you can fire them with reckless abandon, but only as Kliff. While Damiane and Oongka can carry just as many bounties, they don’t have the ability to put enemies to sleep. Making matters worse, you can’t use the Sleep Arrows on Yann.
It’s worth noting that there’s a little bit of jank when employing Sleep Arrows for this purpose. If you engage in combat or your bounty gets hit, they can wake up, so you’ll have to recapture them.
You can’t tie them up while they’re sleeping to prevent this, nor will they remain tied up if you put them to sleep. Both incapacitated states seem to be mutually exclusive.
If you don’t wake them up before you arrive at the Constabulary, the game also gets a little confused when you turn them in. They get depicted as a corpse for the cutscene, but they also get put in a cell. You get paid, but the guards don’t mind if you take them out of their cell and turn them in a second time.
What to do with Suspicious Symbol Notes
Each time you Tie Up someone with a bounty on their head, you’ll get a Note with a Suspicious Symbol. These aren’t worth next to no money, but each one is worth 30 Trust when Gifted to a guard or soldier affiliated with one of the main political factions.
For reaching 100 Trust, guards and soldiers typically give you thematically appropriate Trade Goods like Ceremonial Swords, Ceremonial Armor, Guns, or Field Chain Mail. These are among the most valuable Trade Goods, so it’s better to give these Notes with a Suspicious Symbol to the officials rather than sell them.
Military types also like booze (go figure), so you can increase their Trust to exactly 100 with 3 Notes with Suspicious Symbols and a spot of Wine.
