Name: Crimson Desert: The Final Preview
Uploaded: 2026-03-06T21:37:01.000Z
Duration: 11 min 7 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

And now a bloody battle unfolds between the Greymanes who fight to uphold his will, and

Relative clauses (Restrictive vs. nonrestrictive)

the Black Bear forces that seek to set it afraid.

Every once in a while, a particularly ambitious game comes along and immediately hooks the audience.

In Crimson Desert's case, showing a grand scale world that recalls elements of Breath of the wild and the Witcher 3 quickly garnered a mystique for its ridiculously over the top ambitions for a new open world action game.

However, since its reveal back in 2019, it has taken a long time to get a clearer picture of how the ambitions driving Crimson Desert have taken shape.

And now in 2026, it's garnered some healthy skepticism, leading many to feel it might be one of those games that's just too good to be true.

It's us ordinary folk who are paying the price.

Thankfully, with the now firm March 19th release date fast approaching, we have some extended hands on time with developer Pearl Abyss Large scale Single Player action Game after diving into the opening hours of this grand scale sword and sorcery adventure, we got to see just how detailed and vast the world of Crimson Desert is in real time and what sorts of oddball quests and brutal combat encounters are to come in protagonist Cliff's adventures across piew.

Crimson Desert focuses on the story of wandering warrior Cliff, a member of the Greymane faction that seeks to keep the continent of Pywell safe during harsh times.

But after a ruthless warlord decimates much of his crew, Cliff himself is seemingly killed in battle, but

he's soon resurrected by mysterious new allies that come from the Sky Realm known as the Abyss.

Now tasked with rebuilding the great mains, he'll recruit new and returning members to his cause, push the limits of his newfound powers, and

directly confront a civil war and a malevolent force that's threatening the balance of the world.

Originally planned as a direct prequel to the MMORPG Black Desert online, Crimson Desert is now a standalone adventure set in the same universe.

Even without knowing the lore of Black Desert Online, Crimson Desert keeps connections light.

Aside from the similar high fantasy setting and, you know, occasional references, it totally throws itself into the style of a Western high fantasy epic, but

with the added energy of an Eastern style action game in the vein of Final Fantasy.

The opening chapters of Crimson Desert do well to introduce Cliff as a rugged and stoic hero who can easily cut down enemies in his path, but

is also willing to lend a helping hand to the citizens across the land.

Though much of the footage we've seen showcased the grand spectacle and ludicrous action in Crimson Desert, our hands on time largely focused on the more laid back tutorial set in the Hernand region of Pywell.

We had played Crimson Desert three times before this extended hands on, all of which focused on isolated boss battles and spectacle combat.

But with this tutorial setting the tone for the pacing and storytelling, we've now got a much better idea of the larger structure of this open world adventure.

While Crimson Desert has gotten a ton of comparisons to the Legend of Zelda, the Witcher, and

even Dragon's Dogma, one game that really came to mind during our Hands on was red Dead Redemption 2.

Despite what we've seen before about how fast you navigate the massive world you at ground level, there is a surprising focus on navigating its densely populated areas with care and attention.

We spent a lot of time just wandering the back alleys, interacting with people, going about their day, finding new shops and cooking recipes, and

even uncovering optional activities that do a good job of making the world feel bustling and lived in.

Some of our favorite moments from the opening hours came from seeing what sorts of side quests the townsfolk would pull us into.

In one instance, we encountered a man who fell from his roof and needed help with cleaning his chimney, and

that is exactly what we ended up doing for this side quest.

We climbed up on the roof, positioned ourselves on the top of the chimney, and

used our newly acquired broom to clear out the gunk to help the husband get some relief.

Despite the tone and action being serious, we were pleased to see how much humor and quirkiness were packed into Crimson Desert's opening hours.

There are plenty of enemy bases to topple, but

we also spent some time playing some back alley games of rock, paper scissors with the local ruffians.

There's even a quest that had us rescue an abducted sheep to cheer up an upset child, and

seeing the very serious Cliff engage in such activities was much more amusing than we expected.

Now, is this the friend you were looking for?

Cliff begins his journey with a fairly modest skill set and knowledge of the world.

And as in traditional open world action games, the larger pull of Crimson Desert will be to expand his abilities and insight.

When you pick up quest Information, recipes, and even bounty notices for roaming targets.

Cliff will expand his knowledge and fill out his records of all the wildlife, characters and and important events of the world.

We were impressed to see how much was packed into this comparatively modest section of the massive game world.

Seriously, just looking at the map had us taken aback by how large Pywell was.

It was interesting to take in Crimson Desert's pacing and its deliberately detailed approach to navigating and interacting with the world initially took some time to get used to.

Even as a tutorial, we were kind of surprised to see how much time is spent on getting players to really, really take in the many features and opportunities to find.

Granted, it is very much in the vein of red Dead Redemption 2's movement interaction, but

admittedly we felt overwhelmed by just how much you could interact with.

You can actually go up to nearly all citizens to greet them or even rob them, provided you have a mask to disguise yourself of course.

Despite the range of activities, Crimson Desert is also a combat heavy game and even with Cliff's limited skills, the battles you can get into are quite brutal to see unfold.

Initially, we started brawling with bandits and goblins around the city.

Still, eventually things took a turn when rival knights and other faction leaders started looking to get a piece of Cliff.

The mini boss battle against Matthias was a particularly thrilling fight, and

even as one of the early encounters, it did a good job of showing how visceral the battles could get.

Eventually, Cliff will make trips to the mythical Abyss realm where we navigated a series of floating ruins far in the sky.

Stepping into these visually stunning environments was one of the best moments from our hands on time, and

it also gave us a jaw dropping view of the world's vast landscape.

These are also segments that introduce the new Abyss powers in some puzzle platforming challenges.

These magic powers elevate Cliff's combat and traversal skills to use his Force style powers to manipulate objects and use a force jump ability to propel him off the ground.

Eventually, we were granted the ability to glide and took it out for a spin by skydiving back towards the ground.

it definitely takes a ton of stamina to get the most out of it.

The power to soar through the open skies is yours to command.

Throughout the game, Cliff will acquire Abyss Catalysts which will serve as skill points to upgrade stats and unlock new abilities.

These upgrades include improved jumping and more combat skills such as a suplex and more advanced sword strikes.

In addition to exploring towns and the surrounding wilderness.

We also get to see the early goings on of the Graymane Faction system, which focuses on building up crew, sending them on missions and gaining new resources.

Though we weren't able to see it evolve much, it was impressive to see that it's actually a full fledged management system that will continue to grow as you explore the world.

We really enjoyed the flow and action in Crimson Desert, and

completing the tutorial was a solid onboarding to the larger adventure ahead.

Based on our previous hands on time, Crimson Desert currently feels much more intuitive and less complicated with its controls.

Still, it had the recurring issue of being too complicated for its own good, with its systems trying to cram actions and features into a fairly limited set of sub menus and combinations.

For instance, you'll often have to manually equip key items and gear to activate some prompts which can feel cumbersome.

This all ties back into the attempts to make players feel like they're having a more tangible connection to the world, but

it can often feel too over complicated for its own good.

Along with the opening chapters, we also got a chance to get another look at the mid game of Crimson Desert, which saw a powered up Cliff take on new enemies and a more powerful boss that matches up to his souped up skills.

Moreover, Crimson Desert also includes new party members that can be swapped in if you want to try a different combat style.

While Cliff is still the central protagonist, playing as the tanky berserker Unka or the nimble and fierce Damian offers up some fun alternatives to Cliff's playstyle.

It does well to showcase the variety within Crimson Desert and how the game will ramp up with more zany encounters that blur the lines between a high fantasy adventure and steampunk fantasy.

Even with the lengthy hands on time, we were still only scratching the surface of the larger adventures to be had in Crimson Desert.

There have been many games in the past that try to go for large open world settings, but

don't often really justify the need to go big and bold.

But we were honestly quite impressed to see see that Crimson Desert is not only presenting a case for its take on an open world action adventure game, it is also having fun with the concept by pushing its attention to detail and just how much there is to unpack within the sprawling world.

So far, Crimson Desert is showing a lot of promise.

It's certainly been on mines for many years now, which has invited a host of comparisons with other large scale games, but

our extended hands on time has made us feel optimistic and intrigued by the game's maximalist action style, and

that's gotten us plenty interested in seeing if the full game can deliver on reaching the same highs as other genre greats.

For more on the latest upcoming games, check out our recent previews of Samson A Tindleston story and WWE 2K26.

And of course, for everything else in the world of video games, stick with Ignore it.