Crimson Desert’s greatest energy is in the sheer quantity of stuff it throws at you, permitting you to spend tons of or perhaps a thousand-plus hours doing all the things from searching animals with a bow to growing a playing habit at the tavern. So it’s not very stunning that Crimson Desert’s first paid DLC, referred to as Charting the Unknown, prioritizes including extra on high of its already staggeringly giant repertoire. To this point, the fascinating new actions that principally give attention to oceanic adventures are precisely as compelling as you’d hope, with ship-to-ship fight, underwater exploration, and romance choices being amongst the record of latest worthwhile options. On the different hand, current actions which have added content material, like the additional story missions, have principally been uninspired retreads that don’t do something to enhance upon their established shortcomings. When Crimson Desert got here out, I mentioned that its content material was a mile lengthy and an inch deep, and for higher or worse this DLC appears to say, “Right here’s one other half-mile.”
Essentially the most disappointing a part of the DLC up to now has been the extra story missions, that are solely accessible when you’ve accomplished the base recreation’s already dense foremost story (a feat which solely 10% of Steam gamers have executed, judging by the achievements system). Not less than the handful of missions I’ve accomplished at this level have principally served as an expanded epilogue of types, with Kliff combating harder variations of previous bosses from the current story, and Damiane and Oongka fleshing out their much less substantial tales as nicely.
I’m not far sufficient to know if any of those quests ultimately turn out to be extra fascinating, however most of their goals have been an oddly bland retracing of your steps, like going again to spend time with a well-recognized character and share a second fishing collectively or arm wrestle somebody to collect data as an obvious callback to an equivalent second in the authentic story. I did get to a brand new stretch of the map simply earlier than getting distracted by the separate seafaring content material, so hopefully this a part of the DLC will decide up the tempo, however up to now it’s been about as unimpressive as I anticipated given the low bar for storytelling in Crimson Desert.
Very similar to the base content material although, most of the effort appears to have been put into issues that aren’t associated to the story. Though most of my time has been spent dipping my toes into the water-based ship-crafting characteristic that’s the focus of this growth, it appears like I’ve solely seen the tip of the iceberg, with new assets to acquire, crewmates to rent, and much more actions to be taught like harpooning fish and ship-to-ship fight earlier than you’ll be able to actually start your voyages correctly.
It will take extra time to completely interact with these new actions and decide whether or not or not they’ve the sea legs to maintain me entertained for longer than a couple of hours, however at the very least proper now I’m simply impressed (but once more) by the undeniable fact that these programs exist on this journey that’s already so rattling filled with issues to do. Gliding underwater on the again of a sea turtle and captaining your individual pirate crew actually simply really feel fully weird in the context of Crimson Desert, and up to now that’s been compelling sufficient to maintain me transferring ahead even when a few of the different added content material isn’t nice.
There’s nonetheless a ton I’ve to research, like extra base constructing and property administration options, a difficult fight arena-style gauntlet, and my private favourite – social hyperlinks and romance mechanics for NPCs, which I’m very excited to take a look at as soon as I’ve gotten my bearings (I’m simply not able to cool down but, okay?!).
For all the stuff that’s been added, one factor that’s the similar since the final time I performed is the variety of bugs I’ve encountered in my temporary time with the Charting the Unknown DLC. I’ve already had two onerous crashes, one character wig out on me whereas I used to be attempting to arm wrestle him (he was hilariously standing behind me throughout the match, arm bent unnaturally), and fairly a couple of blurry or flickering textures which can be unimaginable for me to not give attention to throughout cutscenes. I’m nonetheless too early to inform if that is going to be a constant challenge, however in my time up to now it’s been fairly rocky from a technical perspective contemplating how a lot wonkiness I’ve encountered per hour performed.
As anticipated with Crimson Desert, it’s going to take fairly a little bit of time to see and do sufficient to succeed in a definitive conclusion on Charting the Unknown, and I’m hopeful that the participating and surprising content material that’s been added will be capable of make up for a few of the actions that really feel like empty energy.
Travis Northup is a author for IGN. You’ll be able to comply with him on Twitter @TieGuyTravis and skim his video games protection right here.