Crimson Desert preview: A spectacular orgy of combat

As a humble PC gamer who’s grown up using keyboard and mouse and hasn’t owned a Sony console since the PS2, playing upcoming action RPG Crimson Desert at Gamescom 2025 was a bit of a challenge — its combat system has the depth of an ocean, which is expressed by a myriad different button combos you can press to execute different attacks and moves. But if you don’t know the layout of a PS5 controller by heart, things will be a little rough.

I went into this demo with great respect for the challenge, because I already played Crimson Desert the year before and got my butt handed to me. To my surprise, things went a lot better this year, despite my lack of experience with the gamepad. Pearl Abyss staff at the booth told me that last year’s demo was way too tough in retrospect and I don’t know how much of that was true and how much was designed to soothe my bruised ego, but it did seem like the devs toned the difficulty down a bit for this year’s demo, which was also less focused on bosses.

Instead, I jumped – literally, because the tutorial area the demo started out in was on a flying island, so you had to skydive to the open world below – into an experience that felt a lot more like Dynasty Warriors.

After helping friendly forces destroy some watchtowers by using cannons, I was sent off to a giant battlefield, where allies and enemies were duking things out amongst each other. I was trusted with making my way through the carnage and raising some banners to increase the morale of our troops, who were at breaking point.

Obviously, I was itching to get into the action as well, felling enemies with the various weapons at my disposal: I had a bow that could loose regular arrows as well as whistling arrows, which then triggered an artillery strike on the targeted position. This not only looked spectacular and took out entire groups of enemies, but could also destroy some buildings occupied by foes. As for melee weapons, my character had the classic sword and shield as well as a spear, which came with their own moves and combos, of course.

However, no matter how many foes I took down, the enemy’s assault would not let off. Turns out, defeated enemies would simply respawn, so you can’t realistically make a dent in their numbers — kind of a bummer, because that took away all my motivation to actually immerse myself in the battle. If those allies and enemies can’t actually die, there are no stakes.

So I went on my merry way to that banner, ignoring the carnage around me, and completed my mission. Next up: Infiltrating the enemy lines to rescue a prisoner and kill a chieftain.

Now, I should clarify that “infiltrating” doesn’t mean sneaking in this case. You can’t sneak into the enemy headquarters, because there are dozens of soldiers patrolling the area or escorting prisoners. There’s a full-scale war going on out there.

So I took my horse and rode straight through, just like that. Again: Fighting the enemy didn’t make sense, because apparently they would just respawn anywhere, and I’ll be honest — I didn’t feel confident about my odds when fighting like ten dudes at once with my skill issues.

Having arrived at the appointed place, I began clearing the minions around the boss with those sweet whistling arrows and artillery strikes before dueling the big man himself. I’m bad with the parries in Soulslikes, so my strategy is usually focused around dodging and then countering — an approach that worked well enough for me to clear the mini-boss in the second try. Not a big deal for players experienced with this genre, but something that told me as a newcomer that I was welcome, unlike last year when I left the booth more frustrated than entertained.

The fight also gave me the opportunity to try out some of the more arcane abilities, such as the protagonist’s power to slow down time around himself to get additional hits in.

I was then supposed to make my way back to my allies’ camp, but unfortunately my horse was killed en route. Not a major deal in the full game, because you can get it back at any outpost. In this case, though, it turned the rest of my time with the demo into a major slog, because I had to walk all the way through those enemy lines I mentioned earlier, desperately trying to outrun and outmaneuver patrols that were after my life — and sometimes being thrown into the air by riders charging after me.

With demo time running out, I once again found myself in two minds about Crimson Desert. I definitely enjoyed myself a lot more with it this year, getting a better grasp of its systems and diving into some real cinematic spectacle. But when you break it down, the substance to that spectacle was a bit lacking, because it was really just smoke and mirrors — after all, I’d been told that engaging with the environment is actually useless. And so I kept running and riding from point A to B to C, like an errand boy. The only time enemies stayed dead was at the HQ, where I fought the mini-boss. Yes, I was “free” to approach my target however I wanted, but is it really freedom when my actions don’t have an effect on the world anyway, effectively making all approaches the same?

Dynasty Warriors or Space Marine 2 are fun, because you can actually clear away these vast armies and don’t have to indefinitely deal with being surrounded and outnumbered. There is a very visible reward and result for your efforts. Crimson Desert mostly didn’t give me that, scale being more of an illusion than something truly there. But when it did, it felt great.

Even as an inexperienced action RPG player, I could glean the potency of the combat system, the way it allows the player to chain together different combos and react to enemy actions. The battle against the mini-boss almost convinced me that I was good at it when I landed some solid hits and dodged a couple of attacks fluidly. There is a lot of fun to be had here without a doubt, especially as the narrative layer comes in to reinforce the action — in the demo, I got no context as to who I am and why I’m on this battlefield in the first place.

Crimson Desert is set to be released for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2026.

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