Crimson Desert is made by the devs of MMO Black Desert, but it won't have any non-preorder microtransactions on launch: 'This is the premium experience, that is the transaction'

Hexie Marie, a villain in Crimson Desert, stands regally amongst her crow-like plumage. — (Image credit: Pearl Abyss)

Crimson Desert, an upcoming singleplayer action RPG by the same studio that made Black Desert Online, is looking real promising. I've had the pleasure of playing it a couple of times myself, and while I can only speak for the combat, it's shaping up to be a textured, complex RPG with some fighting game-tier combo potential.

But it's also the first proper singleplayer effort from a studio known for Black Desert, which is a buy-to-play game with plenty of microtransactions in lieu of a mandatory subscription. Which might raise the question: Am I gonna have to grapple with a cash shop in my fully-priced singleplayer game?

"This is a premium game you buy one time," Powers explains. "I don't want to say that there's zero MTX, because there are preorder bonuses that we have—but anything that's announced and coming at launch is strictly cosmetic, those are just the preorder bonuses."

Those preorder and deluxe edition bonuses, per the game's official site, are basically just a new shield. If you get the deluxe pack, you get some plate armour and a horse tack. That's it: "There is not a cosmetic cash shop. This is made to be a premium experience that you buy, where you enjoy the world, and not something for microtransactions."

That's obviously a relief to hear—and to be clear, I wasn't sitting here expecting to be blasted with pop-up advertisements the moment I booted Crimson Desert up, but given developer Pearl Abyss's experience with live service gaming, it's nice to hear that none of that's worming its way into the Crimson Desert's sands.

As Powers puts it, this way of doing things is just a different "monetization model—if you do free-to-play, then you need to make up the revenue in a different way. This is a premium experience, that is the transaction, like, fullstop."

Colour me excited! Genuinely. As I pointed out back in September, Crimson Desert seems unrestrained in the best ways. There is a clockwork dragon. There are mechs. During a demo I played, a barbarian wavedashed on all fours like Vordt of the Boreal valley and suplexed me. If it keeps that kind of energy up, this game's gonna be a blast.

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

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