However, the game’s website asks “will you explore these strange new lands alone or venture into them with other players?” which suggests an MMO. While details are spotty in the trailer, the game’s official Twitter page describes it as 'an upcoming open world action-adventure,' which doesn’t technically rule out it being an MMO, but it seems very likely that it’s a singleplayer RPG instead.

There only seems to be one player character fighting at once, occasionally joined by a companion fighting alongside. However, the trailer footage for Crimson Desert doesn’t look very MMO-y at all. Most people would have expected it to be an MMO, since that’s what Black Desert is, though it's entirely possible to play solo. Is Crimson Desert an MMO or a single player RPG? We saw dragon fighting, mystical runes, ghostly swamps, magically appearing walkways, a host of other fantasy creatures and of course, that weird gate thing. Pearl Abyss claims 'each location has its own unique character that is both fantastical and grounded in gritty realism,' and it certainly doesn’t skimp on the fantasy elements in the trailer. Are there fantasy elements in Crimson Desert? Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag did a good job of it, so it’s possible. Not sure I fancy running into battle with a wooden shield and a little sword if the other side has glocks, so it’ll be interesting to see how that balances. Reading the Crimson Desert website, it only gets stranger: “A new generation of weapons has emerged alongside the old: Pistols beside swords, cannons beside axes, and even hand-mounted cannons.” There’s one moment where the player character just drops a Stone Cold Stunner (outta nowhere!) too.Ī bit later on in the trailer we see a cannon, which doesn’t seem to fit the era at all. It seems to be a lot of close quarters fighting with big power swings rather than precise movements. The trailer puts far more emphasis on the melee weapons than the ranged ones, but bow and arrows clearly still feature. There’s swords, shields, axes, bows, that whole deal. It seems at first to be your standard, vague-Medieval era fare. What’s the combat like in Crimson Desert?

With no story given away in the trailer and it still unclear how closely this is tied to Black Desert, all we can say for sure about this weird, magical gate is that it’s a gate, which appears to be magical, and seems quite weird. In this new power vacuum, you need to step in and earn yourself a slice of glory. Some who have felt the oppression of his conquests seek only independence, but others dream of gaining their own absolutist rule.'

In the ensuing power vacuum, those who have suffered under his iron rule now seek to exploit his weakness. There’s a few snippets on the game’s website, but the clearest summary of the story is this: 'The King of Demeniss, Unifier of Lands, lies in a coma. Set in the world Pywel, your job is to travel to the different regions, uniting them under your cause and recruiting allies. Though the links to Black Desert are unclear, Pearl Abyss has given us some background on the story itself. Functionally, it seems like you won't need any experience with Black Desert to jump into this game. With the trailer sticking religiously to a gameplay highlight reel format, and the story summary on the game’s website avoiding references to Black Desert, we can’t say for sure whether the pair share the same universe, or just the same developers. We know then that it’s not directly linked to Black Desert’s story, but they may share the same universe. It was originally planned as a Black Desert prequel, but developers Pearl Abyss have since suggested that it is not especially connected to Black Desert, and instead is its own standalone IP which shares some themes.

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