Crimson Desert’s first proper expansion, not be confused with any of the ten million things Pearl Abyss have added to their vast expanse of stuff to do via free updates, is set to release next month. It’s called Charting the Unknown, is out on October 15th, and looks to be set into a new realm filled with more game mechanics you’ve seen elsewhere shoved together to fill a vast open world.
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Revealed during today’s PlayStation State of Play, alongside a tonne of stuff which isn’t coming to PC because Sony hate us now, Charting the Unknown looks like more Crimson Desert in every sense of the phrase.
Bearded boringman protagonist Kliff is off to a hidden land beyond the Crimson Desert. “Legend is countless people fell there long ago, turning the sands crimson with their blood,” someone tells him. HANG ON A MINUTE. Wouldn’t that make this hidden land another crimson desert, one beyond the existing crimson desert of Crimson Desert? How? Wha…? Am I losing it? Has the Red Pudding game been the one to finally scramble my brain?
Not if I’m interpreting the trailer correctly, it hasn’t. One thing I can say for certain is that Charting the Unknown has witches in it. They’re collectively sensing ominous stuff stirring in this second crimson desert of Crimson Desert and at one point Kliff seems to propose to one with a bunch of flowers, possibly hinting at marriage or romance mechanics. Not daunted by this impending doom, Kliff decides to build and decorate a mansion via interfaces that look an awful lot like those of The Sims. To be fair, if you’re doing abode building, might as well copy the homework of a series that’s long been among the best for it. There also seems to be some base building-ish NPC recruitment to Kliff’s digs.
Further on, Kliff does his best impression of my playing Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced and sails a frigate into an island like an out-of-depth learner driver. He can also go diving in the ocean, leaping in from the back of what looks like a flying robo-dragon no less. The big evil to be defeated in Charting the Unknown appears to be of the massive machine variety, with a floating multi-winged spaceship-looking creation dubbed the Abyssal Horror rocking up at the end.
I’ll be honest, I can’t see any of it making me want to do any more than the jog between random open world things that was my experience of Crimson Desert’s original crimson desert earlier this year. Maybe one of my colleagues will dive back in and fall in love with the Red Pudding.