There are things about Crimson Desert I wish I'd learned quicker. Coming into a pre-release build of the game, I expected it to play something like The Witcher 3, Dragon's Dogma 2, or even Elden Ring. You know the type: gruff third-person action-RPGs where you're dodge-rolling more often than walking, in which sweeping scores kick in whenever you approach a suspiciously-empty circular space.
Crimson Desert has all of that, yes. But in other ways, it plays closer to a hack-and-slash than any of its contemporaries. During the preview – which is a gauntlet-style run of four of the game's bosses – it takes being stabbed by a territorial lord and poisoned by crows for me to cotton on to the differences.
Stagger Lord
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Though Crimson Desert is an open world adventure, this preview focuses entirely on a quick tutorial and four of the game's bosses. Combined, the four resemble the haphazard plate of someone who's made their first run at a buffet table. There's a little bit of everything – standout oddities being a teleporting bird-sorcerer and a giant bejeweled crab – but the first boss, sword-toting warrior Staglord, is fairly straightforward.
Staglord can take a beating, which makes him perfect for testing out Kliff's wealth of abilities. Crimson Desert's controls are more complex than its contemporaries, and a lot of that comes from the sheer amount of stuff you can do. A sword and shield is your go-to for regular and special attacks, but Kliff can also kick and wrestle with targets at will. He's also got a bow, but given how quickly Staglord moves and the fact that switching weapons takes a moment, it's best used for cheap shots when a gap in the melee presents itself.
It takes me some time to beat Staglord – partly because he's got three health bars, and partly because a kindly developer points out that I have accidentally picked up and equipped a rusty sword. Combat is less precious than many of its third-person action contemporaries. Kliff is durable and boss fights are paced relentlessly, which means you're encouraged to get your own swings in as often as possible. Controls are a little tricky – I keep inexplicably re-equipping my rusty sword and using Kliff's slow-mo ability more than intended – but I eventually manage to kill Staglord, only accepting he's dead when several long seconds go by without a fourth phase.
Fighting the next boss, Hexie Marie, is even more intense. The sorcerer teleports around a crumbling ruin, slinging spells while I'm bogged down in flocks of birds and soldiers made of animated rock. Here's where I really try to play Crimson Desert as a hack-and-slash: rather than preparing for parries and careful dodge-rolls, I wade in with the sole intention of landing as many spin attacks as Kliff's stamina wheel would allow for. It pays off, although it does give the battle a little weightlessness – especially when I keep getting bounced around the arena with liberal knockback attacks.
The same all-out approach is effective against the third boss, Reed Devil, a ninja-esque swordsman who strikes quickly before retreating into the surrounding wheat field. It's not the sort of combat I expected from Crimson Desert going in, but it works through sheer style. You can use Kliff's slow-mo to dive sideways while shooting your bow, for example, or opt for a Red Dead Redemption-style Dead Eye system to tag and thwack a bunch of targets at once. The bow comes in particularly handy for destroying totems that made Reed Devil hard to pin down in a later stage (yes, the bosses all have multiple health bars), and my broader strategy – spamming as many attacks as humanly possible – proves successful.
Last but not least, I'm given the briefest glimpse of Crimson Desert's open world when Kliff and his buddy turn up to mine a suspicious cluster of gems. Surprise! It's a giant crab, which can only be defeated by climbing on top of its shell, blasting away gems to uncover weak spots, and clinging on long enough to stab it. Sadly I don't kill it in time – the demo runs out as I'm clambering up to deliver one last blow – but it will be interesting to see how all of these bosses slot into the wider world.
Though I can't speak to those broader RPG elements, combat generally stands to be tightened up a little. It's overwhelming by design, but some hang-ups – like needing to have your shield raised to stay locked onto an enemy, or inputs not queuing consistently – don't sit as neatly. I think Crimson Desert's mechanically intensive approach will appeal more to fans of score-chasing hack-and-slash games, which also tend to give players a wild amount of moves to keep track of. I'm keen to see more of the game's less-stabbier moments in the months to come, but given Crimson Desert is set to launch this year, chances are it won't be long before we'll be able to button-mash our way through the rest of it anyway.
