You need to have completed Crimson Desert’s main storyline to begin Kliff, Oongka, and Damiane’s new DLC stories, Pearl Abyss has confirmed.
Speaking on Dropped Frames, Pearl Abyss’ Will Powers confirmed two entry points for the Charting the Unknown DLC, which launches on October 29. You’ll need to have completed the main storyline to play the first entry point, which is the epilogue story content for each of the three main characters. The second is, you need to have established the Greymane camp during Chapter 3 of the main game to be able to play the new open world content, which includes exploration, naval gameplay, and pretty much everything that is not the new character-specific story DLC.
“There’s storylines for the three characters,” Powers explained. “Damiane, Oongka, and Kliff, you didn’t really get to explore a lot of their backstory, a lot of their motivations during the main game. Now, it’s effectively an epilogue for all three characters. What are they doing after? They’re not necessarily together anymore and traveling together. After all of this, what is Oongka going to do in the world? What is Damiane going to do in the world? What is Kliff going to do in the world? So there are those storylines, which are really cool and unique in and of themselves.
“But then there’s also this storyline and this quest line around this new area of the map that you can play though.”
While completing the main Crimson Desert storyline is no mean feat (it’s a massive game that many are still soldiering through even now!), it makes sense that any epilogue story DLC would have to have this requirement rather than be baked into the main campaign to avoid spoilers.
Indeed, Powers made this point on the show. “It would ruin the story for people that are focused on that stuff,” he said. “If you want open world content, if you want to be able to access all that stuff, you can do it very early in the game. If you want story focused content, then you’ve probably already beaten the story. So you’ll be able to continue along that.”
Still, it’s worth noting that not that many have actually completed Crimson Desert’s main story, in percentage terms at least. According to official Steam achievements data, just 10.8% of all players have unlocked the Expert Storyteller achievement, which is awarded for completing all main quests. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by the data here; Crimson Desert is a game packed with hundreds, if not thousands of hours of content, and it is easy to get sidetracked. Personally, I’ve logged nearly 70 hours in Crimson Desert on Steam, but am nowhere near finishing the main story. I’m not sure I ever will.
Charting the Unknown adds new stories, ocean exploration, romance, business management and expanded housing to an already feature-packed Pywel. We have everything you need to know about the major additions in a Crimson Desert Charting the Unknown DLC features roundup.
Wesley is IGN’s Managing Editor. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
