Crimson Desert‘s controls are needlessly awkward, and the game’s convoluted systems and poorly conceived physics somehow manage to make those controls even worse. Until I got used to them — a process that took several hours — I found myself doing all sorts of things I didn’t intend to. Some of them were benign. Most of them were terrible and landed me in all kinds of trouble. Look upon my sins, and tremble!
13
Failed to save my game
The button to accept or confirm in every other scenario is not the button that saves your game in Crimson Desert. It loads. The game’s autosave function meant I only lost about 15 minutes of progress, but that 15 minutes included annoying traversal and some good loot, too.
12
Jump-kicked a beggar in the face
The ironic thing about this atrocity is that I had wanted to give him money. Crimson Desert‘s conversation prompts are highly sensitive to positioning, though. Since I turned the camera right before holding the talk button, the option to speak disappeared, and I jumped instead. Into the beggar’s face.
11
Busted Farmer John’s fence
I’ll be honest: I have no idea how it happened. (And the farmer’s name wasn’t John, as peasants have no names in this game.) Crimson Desert has an odd relationship with fences. You can autojump them on foot and on horseback; on other occasions, you will need to press the jump button to leap over them. The guiding principle determining which type of fence-jumping you get is, I think, related to the angle from which you approach and your movement speed, though the whims of the universe also seem to play a role. On some occasions, the fence breaks when you leap over it; on others, it doesn’t. As a further little wrinkle, there’s a chance that breaking the fence will get you accused of vandalism. Which is what happened in this particular instance, or would have, had I not reloaded my save and pretended no crime took place. Sorry, if I’m going to jail, it’s going to be for something way cooler than breaking a fence.
10
Drove my horsey off a cliff
Crimson Desert makes you press the sprint button repeatedly to speed up, and there’s a little delay between when you press it and when the speed increase kicks in. I did not realize this immediately after acquiring my special horse at the start of the game, and went from 0 to 60 off the edge of a cliff. Happily, this brand of magic horse is indestructible. I still felt bad, though.
9
Ran over a beggar
Knowledge of Crimson Desert‘s unusual input delays would surely prevent me from committing speed horrors again, I thought. Ah, but that was before I got used to how clunky movement is, as if Pearl Abyss decided each character should be 20% tank for no justifiable reason. While running across the beggar-lined streets of Hernand on foot, I realized too late that a poor unfortunate was sitting in my path. I tried turning. Too late. The speed of the impact sent him tumbling. Brutalizing the downtrodden isn’t a crime, though, and no one in positions of importance cared. Guess there’s more realism in Crimson Desert than I gave it credit for.
8
Punched a priest’s desk
This incident is as much my fault as it is Crimson Desert‘s. I’m so used to pressing R3 to target that I found myself still doing it here, my brain desperately flailing to grasp that there’s no targeting system in this game. Instead, when you press R3 in Crimson Desert, you perform a big punch in whatever direction you’re facing. In this case, that direction coincided with the placement of a priest’s desk and resulted in a vandalism charge. “Why were you trying to target someone, anyway?” You might ask. Guards were chasing me after I (intentionally) committed a murder. But that’s another story. Never mind.
7
Also punched the priest
See above. It’s a big punch!
6
Busted a peasant couple’s furniture
One of Crimson Desert‘s early mandatory quests has you cleaning the chimney of a peasant couple, who mention giving you clothes for your good deeds. I fulfilled my end of the deal, but no such exchange took place. Now slightly confused, I tried talking to them to see if I could maybe buy the clothes, even though they offered them for free. I even followed Crimson Desert‘s rules of pressing the focus button and then pressing the talk button. That was my mistake. Now that the quest was over, these peasants were back to being nobodies, and you only talk to nobodies by holding the talk button. What I did was a precision jump onto their bed, which shattered it.
5
Shot a fisherman
Bandits beset me on my way one day. I was unprepared and tried putting some space between us. Up to this point, I had rarely used ranged combat (Kliff’s bow is much more boring than his melee moves) but thought it might be worth picking off some of these bandits from a distance across the river. Unfortunately for the nearby fisherman, I forgot that the button you hold to draw the bow also fires an arrow when you release it. Yet again, I was only trying to aim.
4
Committed a burglary
When you have a key in Crimson Desert, you’ll use it automatically on any locked door that you approach. Unprompted. I didn’t want to enter the home of some poor, unsuspecting townsperson, but I did so by accident — and they weren’t pleased. Oddly, breaking and entering falls under “not criminal activity” in Crimson Desert, but I’m pretty sure it’s still ethically wrong. Justice found me anyway. I was wanted for a different crime, and guards were waiting nearby outside the house.
