In My Eyes, Crimson Desert’s Massive Open World Still Has One Thing Left to Prove

I won’t lie—I am thoroughly intrigued by Crimson Desert, regardless of how massive it seems to be. Learning that its open world is bigger than Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption 2 didn’t really stir me all that much, simply because I’ve heard that many times before and I’ve come to learn that scale doesn’t matter all that much. I wouldn’t necessarily say I’ve ever been disappointed by a world of that size, as the completionist in me doesn’t mind having a bunch of activities to complete and collectibles to find. However, after setting foot in open worlds like Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild, my value system has been flipped on its head and my standards changed. Now that I’ve seen what can be accomplished with sizable worlds like those, and how much restraint can still produce something worthwhile, Crimson Desert still has one thing left to prove to me.

Pearl Abyss recently published the first features overview for Crimson Desert on its YouTube channel, detailing the game’s open world and the many things players will be able to do in it. While I was enthralled by what I was seeing, by the time it was over, I was left asking, “What kind of open world will this be?” That question isn’t about how it will look, what kind of activities there will be, or how I will get around the massive world—that was all covered in the video. Rather, it’s a question about what Crimson Desert‘s open world values in terms of player motivation. Will exploration truly be driven by genuine curiosity, or will Pywel ultimately be mapped out through icons and objectives that turn discovery into another checklist?

Crimson Desert Claims It Values Curiosity, But I’m Curious About Whether That Will Actually Matter

To be fair, the first major overview of Crimson Desert blew me away, and I don’t mind if some consider that to be nothing more than the result of some unchecked hype. I’ve seen a lot of the game already, but every little detail Pearl Abyss just revealed makes Crimson Desert look like the next big open-world experience that I can’t wait to sink my teeth into. Plus, what the developer said about how exploration will work in the game’s setting of Pywel makes it even more enticing to me. But the cautious side of me feels like there’s a catch.

“In Pywel, exploration is more than travel—it’s discovery,” the developer said during the video. “Whether it’s finding undiscovered points of interest, hidden treasures, or simply a vantage point to take in the view, there is much that will draw your curiosity to wander. With sights, secrets, and surprises along the way catching your attention and no strict path, you can pretty much go anywhere that captures your interest.”

In and of itself, that all sounds promising. The idea of having endless freedom to explore Pywel to my heart’s content and do whatever I want to do is right up my alley. There’s just one small problem though—that’s pretty much what every modern open-world game promises. Plus, points of interest, hidden treasures, and vantage points aren’t anything new, so Crimson Desert‘s open world needs something apart from numbers or a completion percentage to make those discoveries actually worth chasing. That’s where its claim that the world will catch my attention and draw my curiosity should factor in, but I’m a bit worried it won’t be considered at all.

Crimson Desert’s Open World Could End Up Being Just a Glorified Map With a Beautiful Overlay

At one point, almost every open-world game suffered from the same problem: bloat. When a game’s map is made larger just for the sake of stuffing it with more content, it can feel overwhelming, exhausting, and a bit boring in the end. However, I would argue that open worlds can actually get away with having an absurd amount of content, so long as the map takes a minimalistic approach to revealing that content. When players step into a world chock-full of activities and collectibles without a map, they don’t know any better.

But when a game’s map points out where each one of those activities and collectibles are, the fulfillment that comes with finding them organically instantly disappears. Instead of curiosity guiding exploration, then, players end up chasing icons and engaging with the world because the map tells them to, not because something caught their eye. That’s the line Crimson Desert is going to have to walk carefully if it truly wants curiosity to matter.

People like me, who simply must complete everything in a game for some reason, have difficulty ignoring maps bloated with icons. But when we are thrown into a world that doesn’t tell us where everything is and instead trusts us to find it all on our own, we can more easily dismiss the thought of missing something because we don’t know it’s there. In that case, ignorance truly is bliss. However, with Crimson Desert implying that I can go wherever my curiosity takes me, if I open the map and all I see are icons, exploration will be less about curiosity and more about completion.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring Taught Me That Open Worlds Can Be Different

Again, I don’t mind when an open-world map is chock-full of hand-holding icons that tell me where every single activity and treasure chest can be found. I achieved 100% completion on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, if that’s any indication of my preferences, and although I haven’t yet done the same with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, I regularly return to it with the aim of one day completing everything in it as well. However, while I enjoy watching my completion percentage go up as I finish a quest or find a new collectible in an open-world game, I still crave those experiences that truly remove the guardrails and allow me to be fully in charge of what I discover and where I end up. Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Elden Ring, to me, are perfect examples of that, and I hope Crimson Desert follows in their footsteps.

What really sets these titles apart from other open-world games is how, even when you open their map, you’re still not being told where to go. Their maps are designed in such a way that they have clear visual cues written on them that will pique your curiosity just as much as what you might see in the distance without the map pulled up. They don’t overwhelm you with markers or objectives. Instead, they give you just enough information to spark your interest, letting the world itself do the guiding rather than a checklist. In Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, for example, that means relying on visible landmarks and player-placed pins, while Elden Ring reveals its world in fragments and leaves most discoveries unmarked even after the map is filled in.

That matters because it actually makes exploration a choice rather than an instruction. You move toward something because it looks interesting, not because the map told you it was there. That’s the difference I’m hoping Crimson Desert understands when it finally shows what its map actually looks like. In the first features overview, it showed its Factions map, which looks like it essentially strips away everything but the game’s factions. But there was also a tab labeled “Environment,” and I’m hoping that it will reveal something closer to a map like Elden Ring‘s or Breath of the Wild‘s.

Until Pearl Abyss shows what Crimson Desert‘s full map actually looks like, that question of chores versus curiosity is going to hang over everything the game promises. The world itself looks stunning, the scale is undeniable, and the gameplay seems fun, but that will all matter less to me if exploration ends up being dictated by a bunch of icons. But if Pywel truly trusts players to wander, notice, and decide for themselves what’s worth chasing, Crimson Desert could end up standing alongside the best modern open worlds.

Released

March 19, 2026

ESRB

Mature 17+ / Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language

Developer(s)

Pearl Abyss

Publisher(s)

Pearl Abyss