Crimson Desert features three playable characters, with no character creation or class system

Crimson Desert is nearly here, and with it going gold, the team has started showing us more of the game’s content.

Over the last few month or so, we’ve seen several trailers and interviews talking about the game. In that time, we’ve learned quiote a great deal about Crimson Desert three playable character system, and the lack of character creator.

Interestingly enough, the trailer from Jan 29th confirms who you are playing as. For those wondering if there’s character creation in Crimson Desert, there isn’t. Instead, you play as a character called Kliff, who is a soldier from the Greymane faction. The faction is all about peace and defending the innocent, hailing from Pywel’s (the playable continent) northernmost region, Pailune.

However, an enemy faction assaults the home of the Greymanes, and the faction scatters as it retreats from its native homeland.

While on the quest, your early main story is about reconnecting the Greymanes and finding those out there. You’ll want materials to rebuild your home through the main story and collect members while you can.

Playable characters in Crimson Desert

Interestingly, the developer has also revealed that there are two more characters you can play as outside of the main storyline, too. They first appeared in the afromentioned trailer, but Pearl Abyss’ western marketing manager, Will J Powers has since appeared on the Dropped Frames podcast with itmeJP, CohhCarnage and Ezekiel_III, and he gives mention of who they are.

In total, that’s three playable characters, which by the looks of things have different personalities, playstyles, and aesthetics.

• Kliff: Sort of a fighter with a mix of sword and shield, with a bow on his back
• Damien: Agile female wielding a pistol and a musket for ranged weaponry, and a rapier and buckler for melee. Atleast based on images we’ve seen from her gear in the Dyestation clips and other trailers.
• Unka (Only heard this so far so spelling may be off) : Big barbarian Orc male with a two-handed axe and muskets/shotgun thing.

Each of the characters have a different moveset, along with the type of weaponry they equip. It means there are slightly differnet playstyles and archetypes that each playable character in Crimson Desert can do.

In addtion, Powers also mentions that there is a skill tree in the game, that allows you to spec into what ever sort of build you want to make (within reason of course). They will still fit around what each of these characters do. But, you’re free to build these largely around however you want.

You’ll gradually unlock these characters while playing through the main storyline. Kliff is still the focal point of the stotyline, but feel free to grab these and try out different gameplay with them.

The closest thing to a character creator

Also, it appears in a recently launched trailer on Feb 12th, the game has some deep character customization, allowing you to visit barbers to change hairstyles. There’s also a dye customization at a Dyehouse to retint armor and decals, and even edit how your mech and horse look too. Therefore, you can atleast decorate these pre-made story key characters how you’d like.

But, the game is not so much an RPG has Powers explained. You have set characters that tell you the story of the game, and Kliff is the key focus. The game istelf is defined as an open world genre game, with some combo fighting mechanics being the key to the combat.

There’s some RPG elements in there, so you do get some viusual customization of characters. And there’s the Skill tree system tha gives you some flavour of what to focus builkding your character around, but that’s about it.

Outside of that, the original Jan 29th trailer went into great detail about the open-world content. There are tons of factions you’ll encounter, quests ranging from taking factions over, large faction versus faction conflict, and other optional side content.

You’ll find hidden treasure maps, underground puzzles, and other interactions as you play through the game to get the main Abyss pieces, which is the overarching storyline connecting the game’s various regions together. Again, solidifying that it’s an open-world game first, everything else second or third…

Crimson Desert is looking like a monster of a game when it releases on March 19. If you have a spare 15 minutes, it’s well worth watching this massive feature overview.