Whereas at GDC 2025, I spoke with a couple of members of Pearl Abyss, the developer and writer chargeable for sandbox MMORPG Black Desert On-line. The staff is now engaged on a single-player action-adventure recreation referred to as Crimson Desert, which makes use of the identical customized Black Desert recreation engine particularly designed for the primary recreation. Crimson Desert sees you play as Kliff, a mercenary who finds himself repeatedly dragged into conflicts that threaten to plunge the world of Pywel and its individuals into chaos.
Through the GDC dialog with Pearl Abyss, the studio gave me an under-the-hood have a look at the Black Desert engine in motion, showcasing the way it manages to recreate how fireplace, water, mild, wind, and a complete lot extra work in the actual world.
The spine of the Black Desert engine appears to be how rapidly it may deal with rendering Crimson Desert’s seamless and remarkably detailed world, a medieval excessive fantasy continent referred to as Pywel. My tour by the open world by way of a dev equipment included examples of material and hair reacting to altering wind route, shadows shifting in conjunction to a number of mild sources of assorted intensities, and varied levels of severity when it got here to totally different climate circumstances, all of which influenced NPCs and sure parts (like water and wind) to behave in a plausible means.
You will snigger, however the side of the walkthrough that impressed me probably the most was watching a horse get drenched in water. I have not seen something like both earlier than in any online game. As I watched protagonist Kliff journey by a stream whereas on horseback, Pearl Abyss showcased how solely the elements of the horse that truly touched the water remained moist after leaving the stream. I’ve seen loads of online game characters enter water and depart with their garments nonetheless drenched, however I’ve by no means seen a recreation mirror whether or not solely a horse’s hooves bought moist, or solely the legs–I even noticed the horse solely get partially submerged, and the sport precisely mirrored on the horse how drenched they bought as a substitute of reverting to a fully-drenched state.
Does any of this have something to do with how enjoyable Crimson Desert will likely be? Presumably not, and since I did not get an opportunity to play the sport, I can not converse to what the gameplay feels like–I noticed a smidge of fight and exploration in motion, although, and each regarded fairly cool). However the Black Desert engine is much more detailed than Black Desert On-line led me to consider, and it appears like Pearl Abyss is basically pushing it by its paces for this recreation to create as immersive an expertise because the staff can. For individuals who like to only exist on the earth of an RPG and admire how even the smallest of particulars are thought of, Crimson Desert is likely to be the sport to observe this 12 months.
Crimson Desert is ready to launch for Xbox Sequence X|S, PS5, and PC in late 2025. The recreation sees you play as Kliff, a mercenary who finds himself repeatedly dragged into conflicts that threaten to plunge the world of Pywel and its individuals into chaos.