Crimson Desert players say they feel "misled" after learning most mounts aren't permanent: "I got this game thinking I could ride bears, raptors and dragons any time I want"

Crimson Desert is finally here, and while most people seem to be enjoying their time with the game generally, its launch hasn't been without controversy. Developer Pearl Abyss has apologized for AI-generated assets slipping into the release build and there's been widespread criticism of the game's story and controls, but in terms of actual gameplay, this seems like an open world sandbox worth checking out if you're into that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the means by which you're meant to explore are fairly limited, and a growing chorus of players say they were "misled" by "false advertisement."

Over on Reddit, a post with almost 5,000 upvotes is titled "Mounts are not permanent. Report this to Pearl Abyss for change."

The post notes that "the only permanent mounts in game that you can summon at will are horses." Mounts are very common in open world games and can typically be spawned at most points and areas of the game with the simple press of a button. You can do that with horses in Crimson Desert, but other mounts shown in pre-release trailers like dragons, wolves, and bears, aren't as freely available to the player.

"If you want to ride any other creature, you can only beat it until its tired enough to let you mount it and then it becomes instantly aggressive again," explains Reddit user Tic-Tac-UAP. The endgame dragon mount is a permanent feature once it's acquired, but you're limited to 15 minutes of real-time dragon-riding followed by a 50-minute cooldown.

"Pearl Abyss knew what they were doing when they showed off the bear, raptor, wolf and dragons with saddles on them, they misled people into believing they were tameable and theyre not," says Tic-Tac. "This needs to be changed. Feels like false advertisement," they add, pointing likeminded players to the Pearl Abyss support page, which appears to be down at the time of writing.

"I don't even understand why they would do that. It's a solo game, who am i hurting if i put the bear in the stables ? Or if i want to ride the dragon for 2 hours straight ? Shame on them for taking away the fun," reads the top comment with almost 900 upvotes.

"They have whole trailers showing off mounts and you can't keep them lol?" one commenter points out. I am also able to confirm that several pre-launch trailers showed off bears, wolves, and dragons as rideable mounts with saddles, which would typically indicate some sort of unlockable, permanent functionality. It's possible Pearl Abyss has unannounced plans to make those other mounts permanent at some point, and there's also the possibility this fan outcry will do the trick, but for now players are stuck with their faithful horses if they want to get around the game's massive map quickly.

I cheesed my way through one of Crimson Desert's biggest bandit camps and it made me love the game