The first Crimson Desert DLC, Charting the Unknown, is here, and it's causing a stir. As reviews are published, a lead developer on Palworld is defending the fantasy sandbox, arguing that people continually underrate the game.
"Crimson Desert is one of the most technically ambitious games we’ve seen in the last decade, but because it isn’t another linear narrative RPG with the illusion of freedom, it just keeps getting underrated," John 'Bucky' Buckley, head of publishing and communications at Pocketpair, writes on Twitter.
"The technical wizardry that goes into making a game this mechanically massive is insane," he continues. "You don’t have to like every part of it, but surely the sheer ambition deserves some recognition?"
He calls this reflex "frustrating" and believes it's emblematic of a cultural trend in which people appear to want more creativity, but then "we turn around and reward the same safe, conventional AAA games over and over and over and over," in his mind.
"Crimson Desert isn’t perfect, but I’d much rather see developers attempt something genuinely ambitious and occasionally fall short than just keep making the same games we’ve been playing for the last 15 years," he adds.
He got into the subject by quote-tweeting a slightly middling review of the DLC, but in the comments he mentions he finds this to be a wider issue. "There’s endless tweets moaning about Crimson Desert all over the timeline this week," he says.
Steam reviews for Charting the Unknown aren't wholly positive. Right now, the DLC has a score of 72%, with criticisms that "none of it feels finished" and it all "needs a ton more work."
Crimson Desert is a strong piece of work, but given the sales and community, I'm not sure it's really getting undersold in any forum. That said, The Game Awards are coming up, and if it's not nominated for Game of the Year, I imagine this conversation will stir back up with even more vitriol.
