Pearl Abyss published a new dev update blog post revealing plans for new content and revamps of existing ones through September. Do you think they will complete these plans by the time I publish this?
Key Takeaways:
- DLC Confirmed: Pearl Abyss is officially working on it. It aims to “further strengthen the narrative flow”.
- Main Story Improvements: Devs are working on improving the way story is delivered across the board.
- Re-Blockade Upgrade: The system is getting a big update, allowing players to defend Strongholds.
- Major QoL and Tech Upgrades: Cross Platform Save coming soon along with Damiane and Oongka gameplay improvements, and non-combat friction-reducing changes.
DLC and Future Plans
The dev update post gave us five main pillars of new content and improvements to expect. Let’s analyze what we know so far.
Story Improvements
As I stated in our What we love about Crimson Desert editorial, I personally went through a complete cycle with the game’s storyline. I didn’t like it much. I didn’t understand parts of it. Until I finished Dimensional Bonds and went back to the Axiom Archive. Then I loved it!
We have been carefully reviewing the story-related feedback you have shared with us. To further strengthen the narrative flow of Kliff’s journey and to make it more engaging, we are working to refine and improve the coherence of key scenes. We hope these improvements will offer something new even for those who have already experienced Pywel.
The story is quite long and I am not sure what Pearl Abyss could do to improve it. Maybe add some more written documents to fill in some of the gaps? It’s possible they may bring back the actors to voice some new lines, but this sounds even more weird if we don’t put it all into the context of a Live Service Game (more on that later).
I wonder how much of a story update or what amount of changes would be enough to make me want to replay the story again?
A New Game Plus would solve the current issue of not having enough Abyss Artifacts to fully upgrade all characters and being forced to reset the Skill Trees. It would also allow us to provide them all with fully maxed out Gear. I’d absolutely love to have a NG+ mode with more Abyss Artifacts as rewards for completing the chapters again!
Re-Blockades Updates and Improvements
At the moment, the Re-Blockade feature serves almost no other purpose but giving you something to mash and slash on a recurring basis.
Changes are planned for Re-Blockade. A new phase is being developed to make the flow before and after a blockade more natural, along with ways to defend certain strongholds from the threat of invasion. Rewards will also be improved to make the process of liberating strongholds feel more rewarding.
This sounds like a true recurring event worth farming with meaningful incentives to make you want to repeat over and over.
And Crimson Desert has plenty of Strongholds, so you will not feel like you do the exact same thing over and over. Remember Anthem’s Strongholds?
New Combat Content
The devs didn’t share any meaningful details on what exactly we should expect from this. I am thinking new bosses. Maybe new bosses part of the Re-Blockades?
A new combat-focused content will be added, allowing players to prove their true strength as a Greymane. More details will be shared in the future.
Cross Save
With how big and long Crimson Desert is, I think Cross Save across all platforms (PC, PlayStation, and Xbox) is an awesome thing to have.
We are working on a cross-save feature so that you can continue your journey in Pywel across different platforms. By linking your account, you will be able to share save files across platforms and continue your journey on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Damiane and Oongka Improvements
While both are great characters, the current state of the game puts some annoying limitations and barriers before players and many opt not to even give Damiane and Oongka a chance to shine.
Damiane and Oongka’s overall gameplay experience will be improved. Various adjustments will be made so that all three playable characters can get a share of the spotlight.
With almost each patch so far, Damiane and Oongka have been getting minor improvements and often new skills to allow them to catch up with Kliff’s capabilities so they can be more useful as a main playable character and not force you to switch for something specific.
I would love to see the two of them shine more!
Quality of Life Improvements for Non-Combat Content
Farming is an incredibly powerful feature, yet somewhat underrated because of the maintenance and work it requires to produce great results. Update 1.09 made the seed planting a lot smoother and faster.
We will continue making improvements to non-combat content, such as trading and farming, to address areas that players have found inconvenient.
I’d love to see more non-combat improvements. Admit it, how often do you bring the wagon to a trading post? The Mission UI could use a rework too!
What we know about the Crimson Desert DLC?
In the previous dev updates, we had hints and “thinking about a DLC” statements. Now Pearl Abyss confirmed their plans for a DLC. And they are “hard at work” on it!
Our updates to Pywel do not end with the content and features listed below. We are also hard at work on an upcoming DLC for Crimson Desert, and while we cannot share the details just yet, we are preparing it as a meaningful addition to your journey. We will share more details in the future, so stay tuned.
“Meaningful addition” must mean more story content. We have had pretty much everything else expanded upon at this point in some capacity.
With the planned story improvements, we might see some new side missions (hopefully more than simple fetch quests) or even a continuation after the Epilogue.
An easy (and logical) thing would be to improve the Secret Ending and turn it into a cinematic experience rather than having us read books.
With the DLC confirmed and ongoing weekly updates, we might have a larger question to answer.
Should we label Crimson Desert a Live Service now?
Since its release, a little over two months ago, Crimson Desert has been consistently receiving massive updates on a weekly basis. Pearl Abyss proved that you can both release a great game and show full post-launch support to make it even better.
I think that at this point everyone and their dog knows that Crimson Desert’s development started out as an MMO. This is the perfect explanation for why there are so many MMO-like systems and mechanics, why Pywel is so huge, yet so full of content. Pearl Abyss devs don’t have a huge portfolio of titles. They are known for their MMO, Black Desert.
With each patch for Crimson Desert, I wonder, do these guys know they are working on a non-live service game? They treat Crimson Desert as if it is one.
I have not played another game that released in great shape, and has been so consistently patched after its launch, and wasn’t a live service. Cyberpunk 2077 doesn’t count. While it is an amazing game now, it had a bad start. I myself played it on PC and had a blast from the first minute, but it was a shock to see and hear how bad it was for consoles.
Back to Crimson Desert. There were some rumors before launch that there might be an in-game shop with cosmetics at some point. So far we have heard nothing official at all. I am wondering how does Pearl Abyss plan to support the developers working on this title’s post launch era.
While the game was in a very polished and stable state at launch, I must admit that after 9 big and several smaller updates (so far), this title is now way way (!) better. Almost every type of experience has been touched up, modified, expanded, improved.
It amazes me that the community can request something and before the dust from the discussion has settled down, the feature is already in the next available patch for the game.
Each of us from the VULKK team has been playing the game almost non-stop for the past two+ months. We have anywhere between 250 and over 900 hours. I am sitting at (only) 340 at the moment. Endonae might be over the four-digits mark by the time I publish this.
