If you love the freedom of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the sheer scale of Red Dead Redemption 2, there’s a new RPG you should keep on your radar. It’s called Crimson Desert, and by all official accounts, it’s enormous.
Open-world fans have spent years roaming Bethesda and Rockstar maps, squeezing hundreds of hours out of handcrafted landscapes. That’s why excitement around Grand Theft Auto VI and The Elder Scrolls VI runs so high. One has a launch window in sight. The other still feels like a distant dream.
Before either arrives, RPG players will get a new world to explore.
What Is Crimson Desert?
Crimson Desert is an open-world action-adventure RPG set on the continent of Pywel. The game comes from Pearl Abyss, the studio best known for Black Desert Online.
According to the official game description, Pywel is both beautiful and brutal. Players travel across uncharted lands, fight hostile forces, and uncover stories scattered across the continent. The focus leans heavily toward exploration and action rather than traditional branching RPG dialogue systems.
In simple terms, the game wants you to roam first and worry about objectives second.
The World of Pywel Is Seriously Huge
Pearl Abyss has been very clear about one thing: size matters here, but only if it serves gameplay.
Developers have confirmed that Pywel’s playable area is at least twice the size of Skyrim’s map and larger than Red Dead Redemption 2. That puts Crimson Desert among the biggest open worlds ever built for a single-player game.
The studio avoids throwing out exact square mileage numbers, and honestly, that makes sense. Numbers rarely capture how a world feels once you’re actually inside it.
What matters more is density.
Big Map, Real Activities
The developers stress that Crimson Desert isn’t just large for the sake of marketing. Pywel is designed to stay busy.
You can:
- Ride dragons, bears, and raptors
- Pilot a mecha
- Buy and own a home
- Hunt bounties
- Web-swing across terrain in Spider-Man-style fashion
That variety plays a key role in how the game approaches role-playing. Instead of forcing moral choices through dialogue trees, Crimson Desert lets players shape their experience through what they choose to do.
You build your character through progression systems and personal decisions, then fill in the rest with your own imagination. Two players can follow the same main story and still walk away with completely different memories.
Traversal Won’t Be a Chore
A map this large could feel overwhelming, but Crimson Desert gives players ways to move fast.
Unlike Skyrim or Red Dead Redemption 2, you can take to the skies. Dragon flight allows quick traversal across long distances, which helps prevent travel from becoming tedious. Sky islands also appear across the map, adding vertical exploration that breaks up long stretches of land.
Exploration feels less like commuting and more like discovery.
Single-Player Only, for Better or Worse
One detail may disappoint some players. Crimson Desert is strictly a single-player experience.
Given the scale and sandbox-style systems, it’s easy to imagine how well this world could work in multiplayer. Still, Pearl Abyss chose to focus on a solo experience. That decision allows tighter storytelling, better pacing, and fewer compromises in world design.
For players who prefer solo adventures, that’s a win.
Development Time and Expectations
Crimson Desert has been in development for around seven years. That long production cycle shows in the ambition on display. Early previews only covered a tiny portion of the map, which suggests there’s much more waiting beyond what’s been shown so far.
That said, size alone won’t decide the game’s success. The developers openly acknowledge this. They emphasize interaction, activities, and meaningful distractions as the real backbone of Pywel.
Big worlds impress. Living worlds last.
Release Date and Platforms
Crimson Desert is scheduled to launch on March 19, 2026. It will be available on:
- PC
- PlayStation 5
- Xbox Series X|S
If the game delivers on its promises, it could become one of the most talked-about RPG releases of the year.
Final Thoughts
Crimson Desert isn’t trying to replace Skyrim or Red Dead Redemption 2. Instead, it borrows ideas that worked, then pushes them further with scale, verticality, and player freedom.
A massive world alone won’t guarantee success. But a massive world packed with things to do? That’s how you earn players’ time.
If Pearl Abyss sticks the landing, Pywel may be the next place RPG fans lose hundreds of hours without regret.
