Pearl Abyss has released a Features Overview video with new details about the upcoming DLC for Crimson Desert: New stories, ship and underwater exploration, strongholds management, new NPC relationships, vast home design improvements and others.
New Stories
The three characters get individual story updates in Charting the Unknown. After their unified efforts to help Pywel, now they each take on their own path. This means that the new story is a continuation after the events of Chapter XII of the main story of the base game.
The video does not confirm it directly, but it looks like we will have separate quests for each of the three playable characters where they will meet old and new allies.
In one short scene we see Oongka performing a “crafting animation”. Does that mean that he will be able to turn himself into a blacksmith and craft stuff for the team?
Ocean and New Islands Exloration
It looks like Pearl Abyss has managed to add Black Flag into Crimson Desert now. You will build your own ship and customize its appearance after you establish your camp. With it, you will be able to sail across the eastern and southern oceans.
That vast body of water that surrounds Pywel on the right and bottom side of your map, the same one some of us have tried exploring and revealing from the back of our Wyvern or Blackastar. Now it becomes fully explorable via a ship.
And under the water surface lie a whole another world waiting to be explored. We see glimpses of old ancient structured deep underwater, treasures, and secretrs waiting for us to discover.
The Feature video talks about “distant islands waiting to be discovered”. This likely means we will not get to explore a whole new land mass – a new region. More likely, we will see existing and new smaller pieces of land scattered across the ocean.
Ship battles are a thing, of course. While the clip didn’t specifically show ship vs ship battle mechanics, we do see flashes of this new gameplay.
Mission Dispatch to build and manage Strongholds
Once you establish control over some of the new islands, you will be able to send your comrades to build a stronghold on it.
You will now be able to take full control over the management of certain locations across Pywel and even decide what to sell there.
In the screenshot below, you will see a reworked Mission Dispatch UI with new details and new options. In this specific case, the player is building a Restaurant.
Build Relationships with NPCs
The video showed a few shots of Kliff romancing Bari, the Witch of Kindness and even marrying her in a beautiful ceremony with all of the Greymane camp dwellers behind cheering for them.
Design Your Own Home
With the new DLC, you will be able to fully customize your home. Decorating is one thing, but deciding where to place the interior walls and windows, now this is a new level of customization opening new possibilities for inspired decorators.
After you liberate certain castles across Pywel, you will be able to claim them for yourself. It looks like it’s not just V who can have his/her own apartments scattered across Night City, now Kliff and Co. also get to claim multiple locations as their home.
Going further, you will be able to decorate the interior of those castles!
New Boss Arena/Tournament?
In a new Arena, you will be able to fight series of bosses in what looks like a new tournament where beating them unlocks rewards.
Fighting bosses in a tournament-like scenario is not a new formula and the screens flashed a little too quick and too blurry for me to be able to tell if some of the opponents might have been brand-new encounters.
The way the host of the video announced this, it sounds like we are getting a tournament feature where we can fight familiar bosses we have already beaten before in rounds and earn rewards for defeating them.
No details were provided on when the rewards are awarded – after each defeat or at the end of a series of fights. Nor do we know what the rewards will be. But the featured is advertised for “seasoned fighters seeking a greater challenge”.
So, expect to be able to re-match against known powerful foes you have already defeated in this new gameplay feature. You will be able to play with Kliff, Damiane, and Oongka, as expected.
Charting the Unknown DLC Release Date
Crimson Desert: Charting the Unknown DLC releases on October 29th, 2026. You can purchase it for all platforms where the game is playable and it’s available for pre-order at the moment.
