As Crimson Desert approaches two weeks on sale, modders are unearthing more of its secrets. One of these appears to be a fleshed out food risk system, which has all the ingredients to give eating in the game some genuine consequence.
If you’ve played Crimson Desert, you’ll know a big part of the gameplay revolves around eating food. You eat so often just to stay alive that it’s already become a meme at this point; spam consume during boss fights to instantly restore health in a rather unrealistic manner, leaving poor protagonist Kliff stuffed from all the soup and grilled meat.
Then, farm for ingredients and spend a decent amount of time cooking before your next big fight. This is the Crimson Desert way (and we have a cooking guide to help out!)
As the game stands, eating is a relatively straightforward process. You eat food and get some benefit, typically restored health. But one modder believes that buried within the bowels of Crimson Desert’s code is evidence to suggest the game actually released with food risk system that would have made eating much more of a choice.
As spotted by TheGamer, modder claramercury released, via NexusMods, ‘Cut Content Restored Food Risk System,’ which is an effort to restore this hidden mechanic. “Activates the food consequence system Pearl Abyss designed but never shipped,” reads the description. “No new assets, no new buffs — everything this mod uses already exists in the game files. We just reconnected what Pearl Abyss designed.”
claramercury discovered 50 food skills mapped across the full system, sorted by 15 categories, such as HP and Stamina, but also cold food and hot food. There are hidden immunity foods, too, such as Coma Immune, Abyss Immune, Poison Immune, Sound Attack — seemingly designed for endgame content not yet active.
As hinted at, there’s a temperature food system, where cold food grants fire resistance and hot food grants ice resistance. This appears fully functional, with 10-15 power levels per skill scaling with character progression.
“Crimson Desert ships with a fully designed food consequence system that Pearl Abyss built but never activated,” claramercury said. “Through binary analysis of skill.pabgb, we discovered 50 food skills across 15 categories — including temperature food, elemental resistances, combat buffs, and even immunity food for endgame mechanics that aren’t live yet.
“This mod activates the risk/reward layer that was always there. High-potency food now carries consequences: poison, nausea, or debuffs depending on what you eat and how powerful it is. Basic food remains safe.”
With this system in place (be mindful of the rate at which Pearl Abyss updates the game, which can break mods), Crimson Desert gains a sort of survival game feel. Indeed, one of the three presets claramercury has activated is called “Survival,” where every food tier carries risk at peak potency. Low tiers get Drunken, mid tiers get Food Poison, high tiers get strong Poison. Food becomes “a real decision.”
But if you want the hardcore food risk system, try Iron Gut, which is described as “punishing.” “Multiple debuffs stack at the two highest power levels. Only low-potency food is safe. For players who want food to matter.”
Crimson Desert already has a lot going on, so perhaps the developers at Pearl Abyss felt adding yet another system to the mix might overwhelm players. Or maybe they simply ran out of time to get it working in the way they wanted, and so decided to cut it at the last minute. The fact it’s in the version of the game that launched suggests it got pretty far. The question is, will Pearl Abyss add this to the game via upcoming DLC at some point? Or will it forever remain hidden, only to be played by PC gamers who mod their game?
We’ve got plenty more on Crimson Desert, including a story on how the NPCs are the stars of the show, word of 4 million sales in just two weeks, and cats. Yes, cats. We recommend you take a look at our guide to Things to Do First in Crimson Desert, plus Things Crimson Desert Doesn’t Tell You (we’ve got 28 and counting!). We’ve also got a guide to the Best Early Weapons we recommend picking up, the Best Skills to Get First (including a handy explainer of the skills system), and 34 Essential Tips and Tricks to help you succeed in Pywel.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
