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Ever since Crimson Desert dropped that audacious trailer at Gamescom 2023, I’ve yearned to soak in its medieval Just Cause 2 vibes. It’s hard not to be moved by the exaggerated kineticism of it all – the magic-enhanced swordfights, the jumping off cliffs and turning into a flying shadow monster, the ability to drift horses. Yes. Yes!
I’m therefore somewhat unnerved to report that my enthusiasm has been tempered significantly by actually playing it. I’ve since used all the straws I’ve clutched at to spell out “It’s just a demo” on my floor, but the fear remains that Crimson Desert’s fantastical open-world exploration is going to be interrupted by regular bouts of twangy, unwieldy, unsatisfying combat.
In fairness, the demo in question was specifically tailored to showcase Crimson Desert’s sword ‘n’ board (and bow) fighting style; the lack of pilotable hot air balloons, or riding a stallion sideways, doesn’t necessarily mean these will be afterthoughts in the finished game. The same goes for its myriad other mechanics, which span parkour, cooking, mining, and fishing, among others. Still, this boss fight highlight reel approach also served to emphasise how the swordplay isn’t nearly as fun as it looks.
The opening tutorial, pitching grim-faced protag Kliff against waves of ambushing barbarians, starts off fine. Kliff is agile enough to fend off three or four bad lads at once, able to lunge forward with heavy strikes, parry what attacks he can, and dodge-roll out of those he can’t. Developers Pearl Abyss are clearly going for style points, even in a relatively straightforward mook brawl like this: campfire detritus is almost constantly shattering from swords and/or people smashing into it, and even basic slashes might be accompanied by a little camera zoom to play up their impact.
Then the leader shows up, and the pleasure brakes slam down. Crimson Desert’s bosses have two main problems: first, Kliff can only inflict pathetic chip damage with each attack, suddenly and awkwardly turning what’s otherwise a free-flowing, almost Arkham-esque fighting system into sword-spamming drudgery. Bouts with smaller, weaker foes let you mix things up with parries and even the occasional wrestling move, but there’s little room for such finesse against the big boys.
Second, every time you take (or block) a blow, you’re sent sliding backwards, like you’ve been punted down a freshly slickened curling rink. This sounds like a small consideration, yet it’s one I quickly came to despise – it slows down duels and makes rallying for a quick counterattack almost impossible, not to mention the unfairness of enemy moves constantly creating space when they invariably have better gap-closing moves than you do. It’s a miserable touch.
As it happens, I was meant to lose this fight for narrative reasons, but it doesn’t bode well that the other bosses I tried – a giant yeti and the Reed Devil, a teleporting sorcerer-samurai bloke – only cemented my frustrations. Both offered gigantic healthbars to whittle down, scores of knockback attacks to pinball me around the arena with, and nary a glimpse of the scale and “Sure, why not” attitude that helped Crimson Desert made such a strong impression last year.
To their credit, it’s not like these moments are lacking in spectacle of their own. The Reed Devil battle in particular is a symphony of swish, sparking particle effects, taking place in a dense (and beautifully lit) field of leafy reeds. Slashes and dashes behead the foliage as you go, throwing up clouds of grass for an even more dramatic one-on-one. It’s just not as nice to play as it is to coo at. There’s little sense of being a partner in a deadly dance, only of being a hockey puck with a razor blade lodged in it, sliding around in the hope that you might nick your opponent with a lucky bounce.
To pre-empt a certain comment topic, yes, I’m aware these issues might become less prevalent once enough gud has been git. I’d also argue that dodging every hit doesn’t make a boss any less of a damage sponge, and that it’s exponentially harder to learn the intricacies of a fight when you’re so easily bopped fifteen feet away from it. That’s why I’m crossing every available appendage that some kind of re-tuning takes place between now and the 2025 release; if Crimson Desert’s combat overshadows its delightfully madcap free-roaming, I don’t know what I’ll do. Except maybe reinstall Just Cause 2.