You don't even have to play Crimson Desert at this point to know that it is a huge game with countless things to do. Before launch, it gained a reputation of being “too good to be true”, simply because of how much players can do in the game, from flying jetpacks and kites to fishing, cooking, mining and logging. Not only is its open world incredibly large, but so much of what's in that world is interactable, making it feel even bigger at the end of the day. If that wasn't enough, even after a few hours Crimson Desertyou'll start to realize how much it loves to relentlessly throw side quests at you, as there are so many they never seem to end.
Given how packed with content the game's open world is, there's a greater chance for players to miss out on certain elements. In fact, there is so much going on in there Crimson Desertthat I'm willing to bet the majority of players won't see everything it has to offer. Because of that, it's worth highlighting your best – and perhaps most useful – content so players don't miss it. As it turns out, Crimson Deserts best quest line is almost completely skippable, because while it counts as something not worth skipping in my eyes, you can get through the game's story without seeing it through to its full potential.
Crimson Desert Review: A Remarkable Open World That Often Asks Too Much
Crimson Desert offers one of the most impressive worlds in gaming, but the deeper you go, the more it begs you to face it on its own terms.
Don't Skip Crimson Desert's Greymane Camp-Building Quest Line
Not far in Crimson Desertyou will be introduced to a series of quests where the Greymanes establish a foothold in Pywel for story reasons I won't spoil here. In these quests, you are tasked with building a camp in the Hernand region that transforms into something similar Red Dead Redemption 2's Van der Linde camp. At first it looks like something simple that you could skip if you wanted to, but the end result is something I promise you'll regret passing on.
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Eventually, the Greymane camp becomes a one-stop shop with almost every amenity you'll need throughout the game, from various merchants to a cart you can use to sell trade goods. At some point you'll have your own fire for cooking, an anvil and whetstone to improve the efficiency of your gear, plenty of side quest opportunities that, when completed, can increase your inventory, and much more. The stock of the camp's merchants can even increase if you are dedicated enough to build relationships with other merchants throughout Pywel. When you max out your bond with a vendor, you have the ability to add parts of their inventory to your traders at the camp, which can really maximize the efficiency of your home base.
Crimson Desert's Greymane camp-building questline will even introduce you to your own furnishable house at some point, though you can technically use it before that quest.
There's even an aspect of the Greymane camp that looks like something straight out of a cozy game Stardew Valley. If you build up your camp enough, you'll unlock a farm and a ranch where you can grow crops and raise animals and livestock respectively. It's actually one of the most profitable parts of it all, as you can even grow plants from Abyss Seeds that will give you the Abyss Artifacts you need for your gear, skill and stat development in the game. Also, the products you get from your animals are great for making delicious meals or selling for some decent cash.
Far ahead, you'll be asked to expand the Greymane camp beyond its borders, and that's when things get even more interesting. At that point, the Greymane clan is not just trying to survive on the fringes of civilization but is actually firmly integrated into it. It's one of the most satisfying conclusions to a very long, drawn-out build-up, but it ultimately makes it all worth your while.
There is an unfortunate downside to Greymane Quests
Now, I use the adjective “best” somewhat loosely when describing Greymane's camp-building missions, because while they're incredibly rewarding in the end, they're some of the most boring, monotonous missions in the game. I've had my fair share of fetch and kill side quests in open world games, and admittedly they're often mindless, I'll admit. But Crimson Desert's Greymane missions are generally on another level.
First, many of them are really fetch quests, even if you're not fetching items – you're fetching people. As your camp grows, Marius, one of your Greymanes, will often inform you of rumors of other Greymanes being seen somewhere in the world. From there, you're told to “investigate the rumor,” which usually means going to a marked location on the map, witnessing a cutscene where Kliff and the once-lost-but-now-found Greymanes exchange some dialogue, and then rinse and repeat. That part isn't really the worst, though.
Eventually, the Greymane camp becomes a one-stop shop with almost every amenity you'll need throughout the game, from various merchants to a cart you can use to sell trade goods.
It's really the case that most of these side quests see you follow an NPC (usually on horseback) to a location, and for some reason they insist on moving as slowly as possible. Crimson Desert does have a semi-auto-follow feature where you can hold down a button/key to auto-follow an NPC, but it's also a little buggy, since your character's speed doesn't match the NPC you're following, so you might as well do it manually anyway. Aside from that, though, is the fact that many of these follow quests not only force you to move at an incredibly slow pace, but NPCs often take you to a location and then turn back at the last second, making the fact that you followed them all the way feel like a complete waste of time.
Needless to say, if you take my advice and decide to prioritize the Greymane camp building quest, you'll have to do your best to put up with its pace, because it's terrible at times. The interactions between the characters can be fun and sometimes humorous, but I can't help but feel that Crimson Desert could have shown those things in a way that felt less like it intruded on my time in the world and more like it actually mattered. Nevertheless, I encourage you to buckle down and do these quests, as they are very much worth it, if only from a materialistic point of view.
- Released
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March 19, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood, drug reference, intense violence, strong language
- Developer
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Pearl Abyss
- Publisher
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Pearl Abyss
