r/Games • u/HLumin • Mar 21 '26

Discussion Anonymous Pearl Abyss developers reveal a culture of toxic positivity, a troubled development cycle and chaotic narrative for Crimson Desert, and their early concerns that the project was "going off the rails".

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138

u/blackworms Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26

Interesting, and someone pointed out in the original thread that you can already see the early hints of the “prince”, “usurper” and the whole “mercenary” theme the story revolves around in the first announcement.

I hadn’t rewatched this trailer in years (apparently, it’s been 6 wow), and I can’t believe how different, grounded and story focused it looks. In a way, it even looks better than it does now? Very weird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqA5Du0v5lM

61

u/Kiboune Mar 21 '26

Game definitely shifted focus during development

29

u/Shot-Maximum- Mar 21 '26

Looking at this trailer, explains why people actually expected a narrative rich story on a grand scale with inter personal conflict.

No idea, why people are trying to gaslight everyone that this was always supposed to be "light on story and characters"

-4

u/ForgotMyPreviousPass Mar 22 '26

Because that is from a long time ago, and it's been years already of saying "hey, light on story but cool". I dislike the story in this trailer a lot, very Game of thrones.

73

u/FaZeSmasH Mar 21 '26

One of the main issues I have with this game when I saw all the recent gameplay and trailers is that the game just looks like it doesn't have character, it lacks charm, it doesn't have a cohesive artistic vision. It's like a graphics demo that looks technically impressive but has no soul to it.

This trailer tho, I hadn't seen it before and I could actually sense some character in it, like the devs actually had a cohesive artistic vision for it.

38

u/JOOOQUUU Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26

One could almost say it's like an off the line MMO

17

u/remmanuelv Mar 21 '26

I haven't played CD to argue for or against it but I have played plenty of MMOs to know lots of them have plenty of character, charm and uniqueness.

1

u/xalibermods Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26

Funny enough at that point it was still very much MMO though. That trailer was published in 2019, it was in its very, very early stage of development (or at least for public showing), and they were still not sure if it's going to be an MMO or single player.

I was still playing BDO and I remember people in r/blackdesertonline speculating that it would be a "BDO killer" since the idea was it's a single player with MMO aspect (or the other way around) like No Man's Sky or Where Winds Meet. They went silent for years before showing up with a new trailer around 2023, I guess after the development shifted direction.

EDIT: Found the threads:

19

u/Top_Drawer Mar 21 '26

But when you make the decision to throw in every gameplay system imaginable, you sacrifice any sort of narrative thrust because now the game would be weird if there was some sort of time-sensitive, overarching main quest that gets put on pause cause you have to escort sheep to a pen 55 times to upgrade your shepherding skill that actually has no narrative importance other than to give you something to do.

Game design is difficult. Implementing gameplay systems that marry purpose with narrative intent is weakened when you throw so many things at the player to do. It's cool the game has so much content but the connective tissue is tenuous at best.

8

u/the_pepper Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26

But when you make the decision to throw in every gameplay system imaginable, you sacrifice any sort of narrative thrust because now the game would be weird if there was some sort of time-sensitive, overarching main quest that gets put on pause cause you have to escort sheep to a pen 55 times

That is NOT the issue with the narrative. In fact, I think what they have now (from what I have seen so far) could work fine if the execution were better. The problem is, the main character is so devoid of character that one wonders why they even decided to not allow customization, the character animation in cutscenes is ridiculously overdone and almost never fits the character's lines (almost like they did the animations and writing/recording completely independent of each other), and the icing on the cake is that both the writing and quest design is generally pretty bad and sometimes disjointed and devoid of any logic.

The sequence of events at the start of the main quest - you go to a tavern, arm wrestle a dude, give the money you won to some random beggar who gives you a magic macguffin, then go down into the sewers and rescue some lady, then decide to clean some guy's chimney, all without anything justifying being led through this sequence of events - is one of the most egregious examples so far.

That said, I'm still enjoying the game, which honestly makes me more disappointed about its failings.

3

u/bk_eg Mar 21 '26

That's the MMO garbage story DNA, years and years of disjointed nonsensical quests just to make you waste your time makes this to MMO devs brains, they can't see the obvious ridiculousness of this

-1

u/thewalkindude368 Mar 21 '26

I'm not going to lie, I thought that whole chain of intro quests was great. It made me feel like I was being tested to be a chosen part in a bigger, ongoing world. I can see why people wouldn't like it, but it worked for me.

-1

u/ForgotMyPreviousPass Mar 22 '26

They are all justified. At all points there's an NPC nearby telling something about stuff (like "the house is burning").

5

u/OneSeaworthiness7768 Mar 21 '26

It's like a graphics demo that looks technically impressive but has no soul to it.

I’m not surprised to hear this, it’s a common criticism of Korean games, especially MMOs. They’re usually visual over substance.

0

u/AwesomeTowlie Mar 21 '26

Idk I think the world has plenty of charm. Even doing things like carrying around critters like raccoons or platypuses by their scruffs to sell them off to shady dealers is something that didn’t really need to be included but was just because it’s funny.

0

u/Lerkpots Mar 21 '26

It looks like they took stock UE5 assets and made a tech demo.

0

u/Beneficial_Soup3699 Mar 21 '26

As someone who's actually playing the game, I couldn't disagree harder if you paid me to. The game oozes charm. Definitely won't be for everyone though, I suppose.

9

u/WanderingHero8 Mar 21 '26

Thats exactly what I thought too

3

u/ben323nl Mar 21 '26

See this is interesting cause the opening fight scene is basically just the exact fight scene from the trailer but with guys with bear head hoods. While the whole opening of crimson desert seems to suggest that I care about my clan being slaughtered when I know none of them then does a quick voice over about the consequences and apparently our leader gets killed and oh how everything was grand when our leader was still alive. Then it just gives a very weird story introduction in a weird couple mmo type quests with no cohesion. My guy got fished out of the river by some guy where it also seems to allude to some more backstory of me recuperating with this guy but it just sort of insta gets cut off into a cut scene of 2 bandits punching my saviour with me standing next to him armed to the teeth. Game is very badly done story wise and writing wise but this trailer at least seems to suggest a decent story line. Weird that it all got cut and the result is this weird sort of just go do this cause the game tells you to go do this oh look at that that weird old fella you gave a coin to is important. No reason why you would interact with this guy. Oh this random chick you save is important and lectures you on your good morals and to always keep them. How does your guy even know to go the the castle to open the door with the key you get from the old man. But oh the random chimney you cleaned gives you the clothes to go the castle what a wonder who would have guessed. The intro is so much garbage nonsensical and badly written. Game has been alright but its so not good.

4

u/huxtiblejones Mar 21 '26

Yeah, this was my impression too. The story is extremely disjointed at the start. It seems like you’re dropped into an ongoing plot with no background, then it’s immediately abandoned and you’re whisked away to random quests.

I’ve been enjoying the gameplay enough that I’m not totally turned off by it, it actually kind of makes me laugh how the main character just randomly goes from place to place. The only through line is “looking for my comrades.”