They said it was going to be a big one, and it is. Pearl Abyss has just released a new patch for Crimson Desert, one that is not only physically big, 37 GB on Steam mainly due to new visual fidelity additions, but also big in scope, as in, the most things I’ve seen added in a single patch since release. And that’s saying something.
The extent to which this is transformative probably depends on where you are in your playthrough and what you prioritize, but there’s a lot here for everyone. You can scroll through the enormous thing here if you want, or you can read the highlights I’ve carved out below:
New Content
Difficulty Settings – The game now has easy, medium and hard settings, with hard having the most change. It goes beyond just taking more damage and more enemy health, it adds things like the fact that food items won’t give you health until you actually complete a consumption animation, which, given how food works in fights right now where you can spam it as your flying through the air after you just got smacked in the face with a mace, that’s going to make boss fights way harder than they were previously. I’m not sure some are even going to work with this.
One thing I’m not seeing here is the “why.” At least in these patch notes, there is nothing about extra rewards or XP gain or anything from playing on hard mode, as you may just be doing it for its own sake.
House Chests – A series of chests have been added to be put in your house (not the camp itself). Sturdy Gatherables gives you 10000 slots for crafting or refinement materials and you do not have to take them out to use them. The Kuku Cooler stores food items. Collectibles stores quest items and recipes. Wardrobes offer 100 clothing slots and you can have 1,000 total storage from them.
New House Layouts – Compact House, Standard House, Spacious House, Spacious Pailunese House based on your camp level, the last one obviously being for when you move your camp back to town.
New Pets – Birds can now be quests with their own intro quest and types of food to give them. There are 5 new types of cat pets. You can also make the Abyss Heuklang a pet now too. You can now change the names of horses and pets.
New Weapons – Damiane gets The Sword of Starlight, given through a quest. Kliff and Oonkga have two new one-handed weapons, Tree Branch and Sturdy Tree Branch you get from…cutting down trees and bamboo trees?
New Armor – Kliff has a new Baltheon armor outfit. More outfits have been added to certain shops including the Back Alley Shop. Kuku Flame and Ice armor can now be dyed.
Map – More ores and wells have been added all over Pywel.
New Vendor – Livestock are sold there by NPCs for direct purchase.
New Tattoos – 13 of them
Combat Changes
Bosses – They are no longer immune when they perform powerful attacks. Adjustments to counterattacks or escapes and attack patterns of some bosses.
Force Palm – Force Palm Pulse is now chargeable to three damage levels. Force Palm is now faster.
New Skills – Kliff can now use weapon throw, which uses the shield bash controls. Weapons return by hitting the button again or getting near the weapons. Damiane and Oongka now have their own Ambush skill, and moves that double as Kliff’s Focused Force Palm.
UI Changes
Inventory – Items can now be viewed through category tabs, documents, equipment, food, materials and others. Things like basic Gears will now stack, along with some other items.
Map – The map will now display the stock status of shop items for shops with whom maximum trust has been reached. You can now change the pattern and color of map markers. Map and minimap now display wells. Minimap now has an NSEW compass.
Graphics
The main one here is that there has been improvement in rendering for distant objects and textures that scales with graphics settings. Hence the reason for how big this patch is. Characters also look better at long distances. Hair lighting is better. There’s a colorblind mode now. You can make the subtitle size bigger.
Other
Tumbleweeds added to desert regions
Alright, I’m heading back out there. Here’s to another 100 hours of just taming birds.
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