Preview: Crimson Desert Is Real, Complex, and Potentially Great

After various "too good to be true" showcases during livestreams in the past, we can now officially confirm that Crimson Desert is an actual, real video game. In a 60-minute session on the Gamescom showfloor, we pressed all the buttons on a PS5 controller connected to a PC and things happened on-screen — it's not smoke and mirrors; the promising footage showcased in years gone by really is the game Pearl Abyss is developing right now.

Or, rather, the combat portion is. The developer out of South Korea shipped a demo to Gamescom all about the fighting in Crimson Desert. There will be a huge open world connecting all the battles together, along with many other systems, features, and mechanics, but the studio has chosen to focus on enemy engagements for a German residence in Hall 6.

We don't think the final game will take this approach, but outside of an introductory cutscene and fight against standard enemies, we were then escorted in-game to a computerised, Animus-like environment where we could approach four portals containing different boss fights. They were the Staglord, Reed Devil, White Horn, and a big Queen Stoneback Crab.

Almost immediately, it became clear we were not going to be able to fully wrap our heads around how combat works in the one-hour session. While you have a standard light and heavy attack, and a dodge and block, fights gain significant complexity from a raft of extra systems and moves you can perform using Devil May Cry-esque button combos. Where our PS5 controller rested before we picked it up for the session was a graphic plastered on the wall detailing just some of the extravagant attacks on offer. From spinning attacks and foot sweeps to magical abilities, it felt like we were only scratching the surface of what the full title will have to offer. Combos up to three or four button presses long were put on the external poster, revealing what we could look forward to once we've mastered the basics.

Frantic and fast-paced most of the boss battles were, as we hurriedly tried to learn the core controls and keep the main character Kliff alive long enough to get a sense of our foe's own moveset. That's a pretty tall order, especially given our nemesis' could never be considered a pushover. In the heat of the moment, combat feels a bit like Elden Ring meets Devil May Cry meets Dragon's Dogma 2. Two of the four boss fights had us clashing swords with enemies resembling something of a human, then the White Horn is like a gigantic polar bear with moose-like antlers. The Queen Stoneback Crab, meanwhile, didn't operate like the previous three foes, in that its life wasn't dictated by a traditional health bar. You instead need to destroy its three weak points and then perform a special attack the demo had not communicated to us to down it permanently. You reach those weak spots by scaling the monster's back, grabbing on for dear life when it tries to shake you off. A stamina bar dictates this, which also limits how often you can perform sword swipes.

It's difficult to explain when we — to be perfectly honest — didn't really understand it ourselves, but a... let's call it a green leaf meter charged up as we attacked enemies, and then exhausting it allowed for the use of certain magical attacks. If you're thrown in at the deep end with very little help, this is the sort of coverage you're going to get — a green leaf meter!

When you encounter these boss fights in the full game, you'll have a much better grasp of how fights work than we did, so this shouldn't be a problem when you play it for yourselves. We're feeling positive about the entire thing, though, because the amount of depth we witnessed, prodded at, and accidentally activated occasionally teases a lot of combat depth overall. When you're thrown into the air, you can glide back down with a set of wings. There's a mechanic we accidentally activated sometimes that slows down time and lets you pinpoint specific parts of the body to shoot with a bow and arrow. We couldn't tell you how it's triggered, but it's definitely there!

With the combat evidently in a good place, we just need to see how it fits into the rest of the game. Crimson Desert has demonstrated a lot of ambition in its pre-release trailers up until now, with a huge open world to explore and a lot of presumably optional mechanics and features to engage with. Fighting enemies is probably what you'll spend most of your time doing, so the fact it's shaping up nicely puts the Pearl Abyss product in an already promising position, but the downtime between those encounters can be just as important. We're now more excited than ever to see how everything comes together to form a cohesive experience, and figure out what on earth that green leaf meter in the HUD is. Now Black Myth: Wukong is a reality, there's proof these "too good to be true" titles of recent years can actually be fantastic games. There's a good chance Crimson Desert will follow in Game Science's footsteps.

Crimson Desert will release for PS5, though it lacks a confirmed release date at the time of writing. Are you excited by the game? Let us know in the comments below.