Is Crimson Desert multiplayer or singleplayer?

Crimson Desert multiplayer functionality would make sense, especially since the game was set to take place in the same universe as Pearl Abyss' huge MMO Black Desert Online. Whether or not you're an existing fan of BDO, you might be excited about the prospect of playing Crimson Desert with friends.

Following the release of Crimson Desert, we've put in a fair few hours between us, but separately. Here, I'll go into a bit more detail about whether you can play Crimson Desert online or not, as well as how it actually links to Black Desert.

Is Crimson Desert an online multiplayer game?

A man riding on horseback over a lush green field, riding toward a distant city beneath blue skies — (Image credit: Pearl Abyss)

No, Crimson Desert is a singleplayer game, not a multiplayer one. Much of the confusion originally came from a certain lack of clarity in some of the marketing material, but also due to the fact that Crimson Desert has links to Black Desert Online.

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To explain, BDO is a 2015 online MMO by the same developer, and Crimson Desert was initially planned as a sequel. Over time, plans for Crimson Desert changed, and it morphed into something very different from those original plans. Now it is not multiplayer, and not even set in the same universe as Black Desert Online, effectively becoming its own standalone game with barely any ties that we know of, beyond some shared foundational concepts and a similar name. In fact, Crimson Desert doesn't have microtransactions, as revealed in an interview with the game's PR and Marketing Director.

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Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.