Developer Pearl Abyss has announced that its upcoming title, Crimson Desert, has officially gone gold for its release date on March 19, 2026. The title will release across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC on that day. Pearl Abyss has described going gold as a “major development milestone” for the open-world Action game, which was first announced back in 2020.
Earlier this month, Pearl Abyss had described the game’s open world as being “Absolutely massive,” comparing it in size to the worlds of Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption 2, stating it is bigger than even those. Speaking with the Gaming Interviews YouTube channel, Will Powers from the studio stated that describing the world in terms of numbers doesn’t do it justice since this would fail to capture the scope and scale, as well as the depth of interaction featured within.
He stated:
I don’t think numbers really do it justice because, how big is that in terms of scope and scale?” he said. “But what we can say is that the world’s at least twice as big as the open world, the playable area, of Skyrim. It’s larger than the map of Red Dead Redemption 2.
The continent of Pywel is absolutely massive, but size doesn’t really matter if there’s nothing to do. Open-world games are about doing things, having activities, and having distractions. So we wanted to create a world that’s not only massive but is also incredibly interactive.
Despite this, Crimson Desert has a multitude of ways to explore the world, including on a dragon back as you take to the skies, so traversing this big world will still be quite manageable, even if its size is beyond some other large games. Players will also form “Head Cannon as the RPG elements will not include decision-making that causes branching narratives for your character.
Originally envisioned as a wide-scale MMO, similar to Pearl Abyss’s previous game, Black Desert Online, Crimson Desert is set to have a single-player, narrative-driven focus, ditching the fully MMO experience from the final product. It does retain several multiplayer features, such as the ability to play co-op with your friends, as well as several shared-world elements. PVP is intended for the game, but will be added to the game through post-launch content.
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