Before we played Crimson Desert for the first time, we didn’t know what to expect. We knew we were getting ourselves into a massive adventure, filled with enough stuff to make us forget what we were supposed to be doing in the first place. With games like Skyrim and The Witcher in mind, we didn’t expect to find such a significantly different and insanely complex experience, both in terms of exploration and combat mechanics. As the months rolled by, we were absolutely spoiled by numerous free updates that substantially changed the game and made it a lot better.
Pearl Abyss, God bless them, thought we still had too much free time. Charting the Unknown expands the world of Pywel with sailing, underwater exploration, additional stories, and a ton of activities that, believe it or not, have very little to do with swinging a sword. We can now manage businesses, build houses, and even get married. If you liked the base game, well, there’s plenty to chew on here. But how much of it meaningfully improves the original adventure, and how much has us venturing into The Sims territory? Let’s take a closer look!
A Whole Ocean Out There!
We might as well address the elephant in the room. Well, the ocean. Exploring the open sea is a huge part of the expansion, and ships can be purchased from fleetmasters or constructed through comrade dispatch missions. We were happy to discover that there are plenty of additional parts for customising Linda. Yes, we named our ship Linda. All those parts helped Linda serve several purposes beyond transportation, including maritime trading and naval combat.
We can sail between islands, transport valuable cargo, encounter pirates, and search for hidden treasures. It’s not as relaxing as you might think, as there are some unpredictable dangers lurking around. One of our favourite encounters involved the mysterious phantom ships waiting out at sea. They didn’t want to be our friends. Let’s leave it at that.
The new ocean quest becomes available after completing Howling Hill and sufficiently expanding the Greymane camp. Soon enough, we discovered that uncharted islands introduce pioneering missions, and treasure maps are so a thing now. There are plenty of opportunities for players who enjoy wandering away from objectives to discover something interesting. Every mechanic, right down to the smallest details, helps make you feel like you’re on a proper maritime adventure. And then you dive in, and a whole new world opens up.
Diving introduces another substantial layer of exploration, with sunken ruins to explore, underwater treasure chests to discover, and unfamiliar creatures to high-five. Our time underwater is limited by a breath gauge, although refining diving suits increases its capacity, and certain foods provide temporary breath recovery. We can even equip the A.T.A.G. thing with specialised equipment that allows it to operate underwater.
We thought long and hard about whether we should mention the following detail, as we don’t want to spoil it for you. So, spoiler warning! You’d best move on to the next paragraph. Shoo! Still here, huh? Well, some aquatic creatures can also become mounts once we’ve gained enough of their trust. And by gaining their trust, we mean feeding or subduing them. These details give underwater exploration its own progression systems, although managing oxygen and equipment might not appeal to everyone who simply wants to look around.
Paying the Bills
Hi there, skipper! (Get it? A skipper is also the person who commands a ship. Eh, you get it…) Our responsibilities on dry land have also expanded considerably. The improved housing system is a powerful tool that allows us to design entire layouts, including the placement of walls and windows. Once the appropriate camp quests have been completed, we can access Free Construction mode and begin building a home that looks exactly the way we want.
We tried building a house that’s actually a ship, and it looked… not good. It’s perfectly possible, since the tools are quite powerful, and we managed to create something decent on our third try. Decorating was where we spent most of our time, rearranging trees and flowerbeds, puppy cushions, and even cat watchtowers.
Another interesting detail that we kind of don’t want to spoil for you, but, okay, here goes: Drakesfall Castle and Flame Knight’s Castle can become customisable properties after meeting their respective story requirements! Cool, right? We made an utter mess of both castles. But hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and… nope, still ugly as ever. We really did a number on them.
Business management is another unusual but greatly appreciated addition. Liberated strongholds, for example, can support facilities such as restaurants, sawmills, smithies, and tailor’s shops. We can assign comrades, choose products to sell, and improve a facility’s reputation, while operations continue even when we’re away. The prospect of returning from a dangerous expedition to check how our restaurant is performing is rather amusing. Crimson Desert already has so many overlapping systems that they can be quite hard to understand, so good luck trying your hand at this endeavour as well!
And if you really want to commit, there’s that old ball and chain. Once everything is said and done, you can finally settle down and commit to a partner. Relationships are built upon the existing Trust system. Your bride-to-be needs to have her ear talked off and be showered with meaningful gifts. Flirting is a must. Otherwise, you can’t put that ring on her finger.
Certain interactions have daily limits, and flirting with someone as one protagonist can lower that person’s Trust towards the other playable characters. After marriage, a spouse can accompany us, occasionally provide gifts (not those kinds of gifts; get your head out of the gutter!), and move into a designated residence. There are seventeen additional residences to establish through dispatch missions.
We can absolutely see the appeal. We enjoy developing relationships with the inhabitants of a world we’ve spent countless hours exploring. Some might complain that the emphasis on filling Trust meters and waiting for interactions makes romance just another routine to maintain rather than something particularly personal. However, we don’t think these two things are mutually exclusive. We feel the system handles relationships in a meaningful way that makes us care about the characters and put some actual effort into getting to know them, much like anything else we do in this game.
More Trouble
There’s a lot more than this in the DLC. Kliff, Oongka, and Damiane receive individual story quests that continue their adventures beyond the original campaign. These new stories bring us into different conflicts, including mysterious sandstorms in the desert, political troubles, and other worrying developments.
Keep in mind that the additional character stories require completing the main campaign’s Journey’s End quest, which was completely fine by us. We feel it’s best to finish the main campaign before moving on to these quests.
The same requirement applies to the Garden of Trials, a challenging boss gauntlet consisting of ten groups of encounters. We can select up to three playable characters and determine the order in which they enter combat. If one falls, the next continues the fight. But before you start thinking that food can be used for recovery, forget it. It can’t, dear reader.
Complete a group, however, and you can enhance an existing skill. Additional bosses and equipment also provide more opportunities to develop our combat capabilities. We spent a lot of time here, and even though some of the fun wore off, we kept pushing through the grind because the rewards were so enticing.
Pearl Abyss has also managed to iron out many of the initial technical problems, including issues with underwater controls, ship behaviour, and construction mode. The team is currently focusing on frame-rate optimisation.
A Bigger, Better Pywel?
We weren’t exactly running out of things to do in Crimson Desert, so the question of whether we really needed all these additional activities crossed our minds several times. After spending a week exploring everything new, we can safely say that we did! Sailing around Pywel, searching for underwater treasures, running businesses, and building a home added plenty of enjoyable hours to an adventure that was already ridiculously generous with its content. We particularly enjoyed the freedom to do something other than fighting or completing quests. Although, judging by the state of our properties, perhaps we should leave architecture to people who know what they’re doing.
Managing Trust meters and waiting for daily interactions can make relationships feel unnecessarily mechanical for some, while the Garden of Trials eventually becomes quite repetitive. There’s also the problem of having so many overlapping systems that remembering how everything works can be a challenge in itself. We even have a notebook titled Crimson Desert, filled with screenshots that are supposed to remind us how to do certain things. That’s how complicated things can get!
We strongly feel that Charting the Unknown makes Crimson Desert a better game, particularly for those of us who enjoy getting lost in a virtual world and making it our own. We wouldn’t say every addition was necessary, but we certainly wouldn’t want to give most of them up. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Linda needs to be taken out for a spin, and we have a restaurant to check on. And here we thought saving the world was hard…
Game at a Glance
- Platforms: PC (Steam, Epic Games Store, Xbox PC), macOS, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S
- Developer: Pearl Abyss
- Publisher: Pearl Abyss
- Genre: Open-World Action-Adventure DLC
- Release Date: October 29, 2026
- Price: $24.99 / €24.99
- Mode: Single-player
- Requires: Crimson Desert Enhanced
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