We’re always happy to talk about Crimson Desert and that steady stream of updates that the developer has kept coming our way since the game’s release. It’s no secret that we look forward to each one, curious to see what new stuff it’s bringing to the table in a game that was already chock full of things to do. Kliff and the Greymane have a fuller life in Pywel now, with pets to rear, things to build around the camp, and a whole lot more added to the open world that’s been our playground for a while now.
But the latest update (Patch 1.14) comes with a bit of bittersweet news. It’s bringing a very welcome cross-save feature to the PS5, Xbox Series, and PC via Steam and the Epic Store. But the way that it’s been brought to the table might not be what we were all hoping for. Is it a rare stumble from the studio in a year that’s seen mostly wins despite Crimson Desert’s launch response? Is the new cross-save feature going to get better over time, just as the rest of Pywel has managed to? Well, let’s find out.
The Fruits of Manual Labour
While Kliff and the rest of the Greymanes work to earn their standing in Pywel, accessing all that hard work on another platform could prove a tad tedious. You see, one of our biggest gripes with the new system is that it isn’t automatic. You’ve got to manually upload your progress to the account you’re playing on, which then lets it sync across all the accounts you register with the developer. Fail to do so, and any progress you make on one platform before you head on over to another might be at risk of being lost.
It’s just a question of manually saving before you hop off your console or PC, we hear you say. What’s the big deal, we hear you ask. Well, we’re only human, after all. It’s especially easy to forget to manually save progress in a game with an auto-save feature, and it isn’t hard to imagine somebody having to leave in a hurry after a significant amount of progress since their last save. Hopping on to another platform could erase all of that, forcing them to either redo it all or maybe even overwrite what they’ve accomplished if they aren’t paying attention.
It doesn’t make sense to implement a cross-save system that doesn’t automatically sync your saves across accounts once you’ve put them into the system. It’s simple enough to remember to make a manual save before logging off – no arguments there – but we can’t help but think that making things automatic was a more elegant solution. And yet, that’s probably more forgivable than what’s next: the presence of a single slot across platforms for cross-saves.
Let’s think about that for a second. This is Pywel we’re talking about, and it’s a world where you can have not one but three different character builds wreaking havoc in its many districts at any given time. Of course, trying different things out is a part of it all, and we know we’ve lost count of the number of different saves we’ve all been keeping, each of them testing out different ways to make Kliff, Damiane, and Oongka feel nigh on invincible as they channel their unique abilities, empowered by the powers of The Abyss.
Why not allow us to sync all those saves across the platforms we’re playing on? We can already imagine that many of you might be all right with taking your best builds along from your console to your PC or vice versa, but experimenting is a crucial part of the fun in Crimson Desert. Taking away the convenience of multiple saves in a feature that’s meant to make hopping on to different platforms easier is kind of a large omission in our book.
It breaks the feature’s consistency, which is a big deal considering the sheer size of the world we’re dealing with. Yes, switching up builds is fairly easy on the skill level, but finding the gear and armor to support that new build, chasing down upgrade materials for it all, and only then getting to enjoy something you’ve already created is definitely not the way to go with cross-saves. Speaking of your gear, that’s our next port of call.
A Lot of Gold For Too Little
If you’ve picked up any paid items, or perhaps had platform-exclusive content that you’ve been using, know that trying to access that content on another platform where it’s incompatible, or perhaps not purchased yet, means that you’re going to have to buy it if it’s available or switch things up. Your progress and inventory do carry over across platforms, but purchased entitlements are notable exceptions that might trip you up if you’re expecting a seamless switch.
Of course, we must concede that this one’s easily fixed, but the fact that it wasn’t addressed already before the update went live feels like a shoddy way of executing a feature that is certainly a game changer for people playing Crimson Desert across platforms. When you think about playing the game on platforms that are mutually exclusive, like PlayStation and Xbox requires the purchase of separate copies, and you begin to see that hopping on to cross-save play could turn out expensive in the long run.
Your account is only a way for you to access your saved data, and you’re still going to need a licence to play the game on the platform in question from its authorised storefront. Crimson Desert surely needs a cross-buy feature of some sort, allowing players to purchase a single licence across platforms to better serve its cross-platform ambitions. As it stands now, it’s a feature that’s lacking in too many areas for it to be considered on par with the quality of everything else that’s been brought to the table since that release build that dropped a while ago.
There’s inconvenience baked into its usage, and it could prove too expensive for most players if they’re on platforms that require a second purchase of a game that comes with a rather steep asking price already. The lack of compatibility for purchased items is another sore spot and is something that needs to be carefully considered if the developers aim to address the issue. There haven’t been any promises or announcements on that front yet, so we’re not holding our breath.
But we do hope that the studio is paying attention to the feedback that’s surely coming its way, just as it’s been doing over the past few months as it aims to make Pywel a place that keeps bringing us back years after the hype wears off. but it’s time to dive into our final gripe with the cross-save feature.
Risks Versus Rewards
We’re kind of concerned about the risk of making a ton of progress over multiple platforms only to lose it all in the blink of an eye in the event we unlink the final account we’ve registered by accident. Call us paranoid, but we’ve seen it happen, and often under our own roof, enough times to know how heartbreaking that can be. Things like this happen, and permanently losing out on a cloud save in a game like Crimson Desert isn’t just the loss of data but of effort, painstaking collection, and, of course, fond memories gathered along the way.
That’s a surprisingly harsh penalty for unlinking accounts, and while you could, in theory, relink the account in question, it does point to gaps in the execution of this update’s flagship features in a way that does not match the quality of what’s come before it. We’d say it’s the first real stumbling block that the juggernaut of updates to Pywel has hit, and it’s going to be interesting to see how the developers get things back on track if they choose to do so.
We’ve full faith in their abilities, though, and are confident that with the addition of automatic syncing, more save slots, and tweaks to how things are handled across the board, playing Crimson Desert no matter where you are is going to be a breeze as breezy as the lovely one that gently touches the fields and plains in Hernand and Demeniss. However, it’s worth remembering that the developers have not announced any plans to do that at the time of writing and could choose to stick to a rather exciting roadmap first. We’re not saying it could never happen, but we’d definitely guess that it’s going to be a while before anything does happen. Of course, you never know with the developer, they have been full of surprises this year.
Until then, we’d recommend getting in the habit of saving your game everything you’re about to drop off if you plan on continuing it elsewhere.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
