Crimson Desert is more like Bayonetta than a zombie, the developer insists

Crimson Desert has often been called a Soulslike game, and even I've been guilty of making connections during some of the previews that had me tackling massive bosses, managing a stamina bar, popping potions and memorizing attack patterns. While there's a lot here that resembles a Soulslike, I imagine that's because all we've seen are small bits of boss combat and very little about the open world.

It seems this is the case, as in a recent interview with creators Luke Stephens and Luality, director of PR at Pearl Abyss, Will Powers insisted that Crimson Desert is not a Soulslike game, it is an “open world action game”.

More PlatinumGames than FromSoftware

The interview covers some interesting things about Crimson Desert, including the explicit comparison of the map being twice the size of Skyrim, as well as information about the game's narrative and open world activities. However, it's also the first time we've heard a developer really come out swinging when it comes to the game's comparisons to Soulslikes.

“Crimson Desert presents itself as a soul-like, but that couldn't be further from the truth,” says Powers. “Crimson Desert is this open-world action game that has very, very deep systems, almost akin to Breath Of The Wild, systems layered on top of each other for exploration, traversal, and generally lots of options. But from a combat standpoint, you're closer to like a PlatinumGames game.”

I think those are interesting comparisons. Bayonetta is all about smooth, combo-based combat that puts more emphasis on flashy style and pure action than fighting the same boss for three hours until you have the attack patterns burned into the backs of your eyeballs. Having played Crimson Desert, I completely understand this comparison: once you start sussing out the game's combo system, combat should make you feel powerful, and you should look good doing it.

Powers goes into a little more detail about the team's philosophy around how it's built the combat system in Crimson Desert. “It's about giving players tools and letting them express themselves through combat,” he explains. “We don't want to force players into one way of approaching combat.”

I think this really doubles down on the sandbox elements of the game. We've already seen how you can use the environment to your advantage (knocking down pillars, setting things on fire, etc.) and this reminds me more of players coming up with unique methods to kill enemies in Tears Of The Kingdom rather than Ring of Fire.

Much of the confusion surrounding what kind of game Crimson Desert is stems from the fact that we've only really seen boss fights so far, and Powers comments on this in the interview, “A lot of what people have seen so far has been very early or very controlled discs.” If so, when will we get our open world showcase? The game is out in just a couple of months and we still don't know much about the story, world design, faction system, or any of the other meatier details of the game.