Crimson Desert skills

Skill system in Crimson Desert — (Image credit: Pearl Abyss)

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How to unlock skills
Learning skills

The Crimson Desert skill system was recently revealed, and now we have a better idea of how players can unlock new abilities, bolster existing ones, and empower themselves accordingly. Rather than a more traditional XP system, Crimson Desert is instead using a system to level up based around finding certain items, as well as learning from other characters, including allies and enemies. We'll explain everything that's been revealed about Skills in Crimson Desert below, so that you're ready to roll for when the game releases in March 2026.

How to unlock skills and level up in Crimson Desert

The Crimson Desert skill system is based around finding Abyss Artifacts, items found throughout the game that allow the main character, Kliff, to level up and effectively use them as Skill Points in the Skill Tree. It's explained in the official reveal video of the skill system that Abyss Artifacts can be found in multiple ways.

You can find Artifacts:

As quest rewards
In victory in combat with powerful enemies
Through exploration at both the ground level and the Abyss (the elevated overworld)

These artifacts can be used to either enhance core stats, such as health or stamina (similar to Breath of the Wild), or to gain new combat/exploration powers and techniques. That includes attacks based around using your Crimson Desert weapons in new ways!

Learning skills

Some skills in Crimson Desert can also be learned from NPCs, with the phrasing "cannot be learned from Artifacts alone" suggesting that some skills can't be unlocked with Artifacts until you see somebody else performing them. Two examples of this system have been revealed so far:

The protagonist watching a passive NPC performing a palm strike and learning from it.
An enemy using a body slam attack, and the protagonist mimicking that slam in a subsequent combat encounter.

This would certainly give players greater incentive to explore and maybe even not to kill foes immediately, if their actions can be learned from.

Is Crimson Desert multiplayer? Find out more about whether you can explore Pywel with friends here.

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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.

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