Crimson Desert Developers Reveal Details About the Game’s Massive Open World

Pearl Abyss focused its open-world design for Crimson Desert on ensuring players can actually reach any landmark visible on the horizon.

Speaking at Gamescom Dev, developers discussed the creation of the continent of Pywel. According to the team, earning that player trust became more valuable than almost anything else they built.

Pywel combines varied biomes, dungeons, vast airspaces, and settlements. The studio aimed to make the world not only large, but also intuitive and seamless to explore.

Pearl Abyss environment artist Geuntae Ahn acknowledged that the team occasionally built visually striking locations that did not translate well into gameplay:

We didn’t want our environment to just be background scenery; we wanted the environment to be content. If you can see something in the distance, you should be able to get there.

Developers inspected landmarks from a distance of one kilometer as well as ten meters away, evaluating how structures looked on the skyline and up close.

Ahn added:

Beauty and explore-ability are not the same thing.

The team also had to balance differing asset quality standards while stitching together hundreds of map sections. The proprietary BlackSpace Engine underwent numerous technical overhauls across development and continues to evolve.

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