Crimson Desert is Legendary

updated at 70 hours played - Crimson Desert is a legendary game, Just the first area has more beautiful stuff to explore and content than most single player games in existence. 70 hours of mostly exploring and sidequesting with some drives down the main story line. I've been going hard on side content and completionism, and still have a few days of grinding left probably before i feel like moving on from Hernand (the first area) They also paid attention to details, which is huge for me - I can pick up a bunch of chipmunks, or bugs, and release them to run around in someones house. I can catapult myself with a tree. I can focus light on a spot to ignite it. I've got FOMO thinking about all the cool things I haven't discovered yet. Exploration is rewarded, and everywhere you look is an amazing view (this is something even the most beautiful games can have a hard time with, hard to see the beauty when you are inside of it) in Crimson Desert you see EVERYTHING in its full splendor, from practically any vantage point, its crazy how every place you go feels a bit magical, and well, it probably is. On top of that, Combat is great, I haven't gotten burnt out by it at all yet, as I can mix up my gameplay with exploration and camp management etc. It can be challenging or easy, its both at the same time. Timing and "feel" of the mechanics can be a bit hard to get the hang of, at 70 hours im still learning pretty much, but it hasnt stopped me from enjoying the hell out of myself, every game has its moments of frustration - and most of CD's are fixable, with tweaks to movement mechanics and controls, it will be even better of a game, and seems like they are willing to do those types of patches rapidly. I have a feeling this game will get even better over time, and I already have my wallet ready for any additional content, expansions, CD 2, etc. Take my money! To give you an idea of the gameplay loop, - Quest, explore, puzzle, fight, upgrades - food - camp management, repeat Zelda style puzzles, Red Dead style camp/companion missions and story, huge living FULL world, MMO/Survival style gathering, tiny bit of Korean RNG grinding with crafting abyss gears, which is a nice touch actually. I'm usually ranting about how games screw up these days trying to do everything in their game, because they usually do a poor job of it, and the game systems don't feel complete or really worthwhile. Well Crimson Desert definitely is the new standard on how to be a jack of all trades, because it cherry picked systems from different great games, and actually made them all fun and feel worth doing. The story isnt a masterpiece, but the whole game is the story, which is a masterpiece. It doesn't have Red Dead level atmosphere 100%, but the immersion is top notch. CD has quickly become one of my favorite games of all time, up there with elden ring, ocarina of time, baldurs gate 3 etc.