Crimson Desert has a high-profile fan: the director of The Witcher 3.
Each video games are single-player fantasy adventures, and whereas The Witcher 3 leans extra closely on story, character, and conventional RPG components, Pearl Abyss and CD Projekt’s huge open worlds are sometimes in contrast.
Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, the director of The Witcher 3 and former Cd Projekt govt, instructed The Game Business that Crimson Desert, alongside Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, are “totally different.”
“The issue on this trade generally is that folks opening corporations are considering [too much] about easy methods to generate profits,” Tomaszkiewicz stated. “It is a actually chilly method for the video games. You can’t create artwork like this.”
Tomaszkiewicz, who left CD Projekt to start out his personal studio, The Blood of Dawnwalker developer Insurgent Wolves, stated each Crimson Desert and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 rekindled recollections of the nineties, when “each sport was some unknown.” The method, he stated, of “including some dangerous stuff” to triple-A RPGs so that they’re not merely the identical as what has come earlier than, was the entire level of establishing Insurgent Wolves.
“I believe that this [idea] is rising today, as a result of once you take a look at Clair Obscur, or Crimson Desert proper now, these video games are totally different,” he stated.
“They don’t seem to be a duplicate of different AAA video games, however delivering one thing fairly contemporary. And I’m actually glad of it as a result of I’m beginning to really feel like I did within the Nineties after I performed video games on my 286 PC, and even on the Atari the place each sport was totally different sport. Each sport was some unknown. We need to ship the same expertise for folks.”
Each Crimson Desert and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 are massive hits, with the previous promoting 4 million copies to date, and the latter promoting over 5 million and successful most 2025 Recreation of the 12 months awards. Tomaszkiewicz shall be hoping for related returns from The Blood of Dawnwalker, which is one other single-player open world fantasy journey.
We’ve acquired loads extra on Crimson Desert, together with a narrative on how the NPCs are the celebrities of the present, a hidden meals consequence system {that a} modder has restored, and a powerful character creator mod. We advocate you check out our information to Issues to Do First in Crimson Desert, plus Issues Crimson Desert Doesn’t Inform You (we’ve acquired 28 and counting!). We’ve additionally acquired a information to the Greatest Early Weapons we advocate selecting up, the Greatest Abilities to Get First (together with a useful explainer of the abilities system), and 34 Important Suggestions and Tips that will help you achieve Pywel.
Wesley is Director, Information at IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You possibly can attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.