Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss has outlined a number of significant changes coming to the game in the coming months, each addressing various community complaints that were highlighted recently.
There are some real crowd-pleasers in Pearl Abyss’ blog post, including boss rematches, enemy territory recapture, and difficulty settings. But beyond that, Pearl Abyss also confirmed upgrades to the two secondary characters, Damiane and Oongka, to bring them more in line with main playable character Kliff, new pets and mounts, new outfits, and significant changes to storage.
Meanwhile, user interface and control improvements are on the way, as well as improvements to distant scenery quality. Perhaps the most important change is you’ll be able to hide items on Kliff’s back (finally!).
There’s a lot to unpack here (all the details are below), but let’s start with ‘re-blockading:’
“Peace is fleeting, and darkness does not retreat so easily. Enemy remnants are waiting for their chance to reclaim liberated locations. Drive out the forces that have seized these locations once more and continue proving the strength of the Greymanes.”
That’s a timeline upcoming change, given we reported just this week that some players with hundreds of hours under their belt had started to complain that the world had become too peaceful because they’d basically killed all the enemies.
The changes to difficulty settings are welcome, too. Here’s the note:
“A difficulty settings feature will be added so that everyone — from new Greymanes to the more advanced — can enjoy the adventure at the level that suits them best. You’ll be able to choose from easy, normal, and hard difficulty.”
As IGN had reported, some players had called for a hard mode because they felt updates had made the game too easy. But now we know we’re also getting an easy mode, which should be good news for those who prefer a more easy-going experience (Crimson Desert can be brutal in places, particularly with some of the bosses). It will be interesting to see how the game changes with each setting.
And this is a really important one: new skills for Damiane and Oongka:
“We fully understand your feedback about the need for Damiane and Oongka to have skills comparable to ‘Force Palm’ and ‘Axiom Force.’ To address this, both characters will receive new abilities equivalent to those skills.”
This is key, because players have found that Damiane and Oongka are limited in scope compared to Kliff, and indeed much of the game simply can’t be completed while using either of the characters because they don’t have the same abilities to, for example, solve puzzles. Hopefully with this change, Damiane and Oongka will become genuine alternative choices.
Other quality of life improvements are also welcome. Crafting from camp storage is a big deal for a game that currently forces you to take resources out of your storage box and pop them into your inventory every time you want to use them. And more summonable mounts and new pets will be added.
Overall, all this is good news for Crimson Desert. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a developer make such sweeping improvements to a big, AAA single-player open world video game this quickly before, and Pearl Abyss is rightly being praised for it. The pace of change with this game really is remarkable, and you wonder each week what’s coming next. Pearl Abyss said the changes, below, will be rolled out from April to June.
Changes coming to Crimson Desert April-June 2026:
◆ New Content and Features
We’re preparing new challenges so you can continue testing yourself throughout your journey across Pywel.
■ Boss Rematches
The powerful bosses you encountered across Crimson Desert are waiting to challenge you once again. With boss rematches, you’ll have the opportunity to face off against any boss again, test how much you’ve grown, and further refine your own combat style through different strategies and approaches.
■ Re-blockading
Peace is fleeting, and darkness does not retreat so easily. Enemy remnants are waiting for their chance to reclaim liberated locations. Drive out the forces that have seized these locations once more and continue proving the strength of the Greymanes.
■ Difficulty Settings
A difficulty settings feature will be added so that everyone—from new Greymanes to the more advanced—can enjoy the adventure at the level that suits them best. You’ll be able to choose from easy, normal, and hard difficulty.
We’re also working on new combat-focused content, so stay tuned.
◆ Improvements to Character Play
■ New Skills for Damiane and Oongka
We fully understand your feedback about the need for Damiane and Oongka to have skills comparable to “Force Palm” and “Axiom Force.” To address this, both characters will receive new abilities equivalent to those skills.
■ Hide Back Weapons
A new option to hide the weapons on your character’s back will be added, so certain equipment worn on your back won’t break immersion during combat.
■ Addition of New Outfits:
New outfits for characters will be added.
Additionally, certain outfits that can only be sold or donated will be updated so that they can also be worn.
◆ QoL Improvements and Life Features
■ New Specialized Storage
– Food storage: We plan to add a new food storage, from which you can directly take out ingredients for use in cooking. When preparing meals, you’ll be able to use ingredients from both your food storage and your inventory.
– Wardrobe: A new wardrobe storage will be added so that you can store your headgear, armor, gloves, footwear, and cloaks.
– Gatherables Storage: A new gatherables storage will be added, from which you can directly take out items for use in tempering and crafting. This storage will be able to hold a variety of crafting materials, including insects, stones, ores, and more.
– Collections Storage: A new Collection Storage will be added, giving you a place to keep quest items tied to your adventures, along with recipes and other items you’ve collected on your journey.
■ Pets & Mounts
More summonable mounts and new pets will be added. Also, in addition to existing horse tack sets, dedicated armor for other mounts is also being planned.
◆ System and Graphics Improvements
■ UI Improvements
To improve legibility, we’ll be adding a minimum font size adjustment option. Since Crimson Desert supports 14 UI languages, fully optimizing this feature across all of them will take some time, but we plan to introduce it first to help make the game more comfortable to play. We also plan to continue improving various UI elements and QoL features, including improvements to the map, inventory, and housing.
■ Improvements to Controls
We are carefully reviewing your feedback about controls. To provide a better gameplay experience, we plan to add customization options for certain controller inputs. We will also expand the range of configurable keys for keyboard and mouse to improve usability.
■ Improvements to Distant Scenery Quality
We are working on enhancing the realism of distant backgrounds so you can enjoy Pywel’s landscapes in greater depth. Please note that the patch size may be somewhat larger due to improvements to how distant scenery changes and the quality of rendering under different conditions. Take a look at the image below for a preview of how Pywel will look after the update.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
