Highlights
- Pearl Abyss showcased a new trailer for Crimson Desert at Gamescom Opening Night Live, giving fans their first look at the game in nearly three years.
- The game takes place in the same universe as Black Desert and features an open-world setting with various activities and exploration opportunities.
- The trailer highlighted the fast-paced combat, improved graphics, and showed glimpses of potential features like shops and interacting with animals. Despite no release date being announced, fans responded positively.
During the 2023 Gamescom Opening Night Live broadcast, Pearl Abyss took the stage to show off a new trailer for the open-world action game Crimson Desert. The trailer was the first time Crimson Desert returned to the spotlight in nearly three years when it was first revealed during the 2020 edition of The Game Awards before its indefinite delay.
The story of Crimson Desert takes place in the same universe as Pearl Abyss' hit MMORPG Black Desert, on the continent of Pywel. As a troubled mercenary named Kliff, players will be able to take on various factions, take part in activities such as arm wrestling, gather items in the wild, climb various buildings, and explore the gorgeous landscapes that Pearl Abyss has looked to improve since the game was first announced. Though the South Korean developers had remained silent about Crimson Desert since it took an indefinite delay in 2021, Pearl Abyss had not given up work on the project.
Last week, Geoff Keighly tweeted that Pearl Abyss would make an appearance at Gamescom Opening Night Live with a new trailer. The trailer lasted over three minutes long but showed plenty of action to sate the appetites of interested gamers. Taken from a work-in-progress build of Crimson Desert, the trailer showed a new user interface that had a rotating minimap located on the bottom left of the screen, with the time, weather conditions, location name, and some objective markers scattered throughout. The fast-paced combat of Crimson Desert was shown via a third-person camera similar to Final Fantasy 16, with some quick-time events and enemies such as a golden dragon making a brief appearance.
The trailer also briefly showed how shops could potentially look in the final product, and Kliff showed his softer side by petting a dog, picking up a cat, and tending to livestock. In addition to the character detail, the environments showed the graphical prowess of Crimson Desert, which runs on a modified version of the Black Desert engine. On social media, the response has been cautiously optimistic for Crimson Desert. While a few users lamented the fact that Pearl Abyss did not reveal a release date for the project, others were glad to see Crimson Desert show up after a significant hiatus.
Though Gamescom Opening Night Live was marred by attendees that rushed the stage, the rest of the show went off without any issues. It remains to be seen when Pearl Abyss will share more details about Crimson Desert.
Crimson Desert is in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
