Crimson Desert patch kicks off Pearl Abyss's attempt to smooth out the RPG's rough controls, with boosted responsiveness and more as dev promises "this is not the end"

A huge new Crimson Desert patch is here, rolling out a number of fixes and improvements, including the addition of storage at Howling Hill Camp and more fast travel points.

Patch 1.00.03 comes following a post from developer Pearl Abyss a couple of days after the massive open-world game's launch, thanking players for their support while noting that "we have been listening closely to your feedback and doing our best to make improvements to the game." Specifically, the devs acknowledged that "we are aware of the discomfort many players have experienced with the controls, and we are currently preparing a patch to address this. We also want to apologize for not providing keyboard and mouse players with a satisfactory gameplay experience."

Pearl Abyss begins to address these control-related issues with this update, although "this is not the end to our control improvements; we will continue to improve both controller and keyboard/mouse controls moving forward." So far, the devs have "improved the response speed of the interaction UI," as well as the responsiveness of jump inputs and main menu UI, in addition to the character movement controls when using keyboard and mouse specifically. Keyboard and mouse users also have four new shortcuts to open the map, journal, inventory, and skills page. Other tweaks here ensure that you target the center of the screen when aiming while you're unarmed or using a lantern, and "an intermittent issue where the Main Menu would not open."

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Elsewhere, the devs have "added more Abyss Nexuses across the continent of Pywel to improve fast travel via teleportation," and "added the Private Storage that can be used to store items from your Inventory." The storage can be found both "at the initial temporary lodgings in Hernand and at the Howling Hill Camp." Other highlights include collectibles and ore veins now being "discovered automatically when you are within a certain proximity," and certain unnamed enemies and bosses getting both their attack and health nerfed.

As for bugs and issues, a PS5-specific problem where "the game would occasionally crash when opening the Map menu" has been ironed out, as well as problems in the quests Reunion, Mysterious Pot, and Turnali's Request, the latter of which previously had a potential blocker that could stop you from completing it.

The full patch notes are pretty enormous, but be sure to give them a gander if you're curious about all the other changes. Pearl Abyss is far from done, though, noting that "we are currently reviewing various gameplay elements based on your feedback and will roll out further improvements and fixes in subsequent updates. We remain committed to improving Crimson Desert and your experience in Pywel."

Be sure to take a look at our Crimson Desert review to find out if it's worth picking up amongst the many other new games for 2026.