Inside Games News and Podcasts · Lawrence Sonntag

We Played Crimson Desert Early! - Inside Games Preview

March 4, 2026·29 min·1 clip

Crimson Desert spends its first three hours on a tutorial that “explains nothing and everything.”

1. Inside Games previews Crimson Desert, a large open-world game shown to the show before release. 2. The episode centers on Bruce, the player who spent about four hours in the preview build, and the hosts who press him on what the game actually does. 3. The main question is whether Crimson Desert is a real game with structure or just a huge space for “fuck around mechanics.” 4. Bruce says the first three hours are tutorial-heavy and compare the onboarding to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. 5. He describes puzzles that did not explain themselves, including a temple sequence with a magical grappling hook and a thrust-palm prompt. 6. He also says one fire-based interaction did not work and had to be identified by a developer as “bugged.” 7. The host argues that the confusing start could stop players who buy the game and never reach the open world. 8. Once past the tutorial, Bruce says the exploration opens up into side quests, main quests, and a world that feels alive. 9. He specifically mentions finding a cat, helping a child recover a lost sheep, and clearing out bandits. 10. He says the game feels like a mix of Zelda-style openness and an MMO with nobody else around. 11. Bruce calls the world “gorgeous” and cites Digital Foundry as being impressed by the performance and visuals. 12. He says he played on widescreen on very powerful hardware and noticed no frame drops. 13. The combat is described as very deep, with a giant skill tree, magical skills, fighting skills, weapon leveling, and many button combinations. 14. Bruce says he initially spammed one attack, then later had to use bleed and dodge against tougher enemies and larger enemy groups. 15. The story setup includes the gray mains, a death-and-return premise, and multiversal language tied to chaos. 16. Bruce says the game’s tone is over-the-top, with a gruff main character and exaggerated NPCs like a screaming child searching for a sheep. 17. The conversation is informal, reactive, and based on live impressions from a room of about 50 people playing similar sections. 18. The tone stays skeptical about bugs but enthusiastic about the amount of content and the quality of the world. 19. Players who want huge open-world RPGs with weird side quests and deep combat. 20. Listeners who want concise, polished previews with no tutorial complaints.

As heard by us

A clear-eyed Crimson Desert preview that sells the scale while keeping the build's rough edges in view.

The segment treats Crimson Desert as a big, polished open world with plenty to do, and the case it makes is solid. It stays grounded in specifics: about four hours of hands-on time, fully voiced side jobs, a main quest line, and a game that seems built to pop on stream as much…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want an early read on Crimson Desert from a preview build before release.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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