Crimson Desert

Devils may cry, and so might you after this

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Sometimes a game trailer has a peculiar 'tech demo' flavour that makes us suspect either a) the game it's promoting might never be released or b) if by some miracle the game does hit the shelves, there's no way it'll manage to live up to the hype. Crimson Desert was announced in 2020, and what we've seen of it certainly impresses us, but also makes us wonder what it would feel like in the hands.

After all, Crimson Desert is in many ways a departure for developer Pearl Abyss. The creator of Black Desert Online is certainly capable when it comes to combat, but Crimson Desert is both its first open world single-player RPG, and its first move away from Black Desert. A lot is promised: intense combat, dungeon crawling, farming, and even the power to lead rats about like the Pied Piper.

And so when we're given an hour hands-on with the game, we wonder how we'll get a taste of it all.

FANTASY ZONE

The answer is, we don't - not yet. Our hands-on demo is purely focussed on the combat, specifically as it relates to bashing bosses. Though that's no bad way to begin. We begin with a tutorial, and the combat is best described as 'Dragon's Dogma, but nobody told any of the enemies that.' It's tactile and at times brutal, though dealing with hordes of enemies can prove a bit much for hirsute Viking protagonist Kliff, especially while we're in the process of getting used to controlling him.