1. General & Technical
Single-player, full stop. Steam lists it as single-player with Steam Cloud and achievements and nothing else: there is no multiplayer mode, no co-op and no arena. Pearl Abyss's other game, Black Desert, is the MMO.
Yes, across all of them since patch 1.14.00 (16 July 2026): one save carries between PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Steam and the Epic Games Store once you link the accounts from the link or QR code in the corner of the Save menu. Before that patch, cross-progression went only through Xbox Play Anywhere. Between your own PCs on Steam, Steam Cloud also carries your saves.
Pearl Abyss's own Steam listing for Crimson Desert Enhanced. Minimum: Windows 10 64-bit, Ryzen 5 2600X / i5-8500, 16 GB RAM, RX 5500 XT / GTX 1060, DirectX 12. Recommended: Ryzen 5 5600 / i5-11600K, 16 GB RAM, RX 6700 XT / RTX 2080. Both need 150 GB on an SSD.
Not skip — fast-forward. Hold the prompted input during a cutscene (Space or Esc on PC, B / Circle on a controller) and it plays at roughly 1.5×. Some prologue and tutorial sequences cannot be fast-forwarded at all: they double as loading screens. Ordinary dialogue advances line by line with a tap.
150 GB, and an SSD is required, per the Steam listing.
2. Exploration & World
Climb on (Square / X / E). A circle appears showing taming progress: pull the left stick in the opposite direction to the horse's movement — back when it pulls forward, right when it pulls left — until the circle fills yellow. There is a hidden time limit; react too slowly and it throws you.
Two kinds of point, both hidden inside the white ? search areas on the map. Abyss Nexus plates activate when you stand on the disc for a few seconds and stay unlocked for good (a blue icon). Abyss Cressets activate when you take the artifact from the small pillar, and some need a nearby puzzle solved first — aligning statues, pushing stones with Force Palm. Your sword's Guiding Light (L1+R1 / LB+RB / Ctrl + left click) makes them glow blue when in sight. Since patch 1.03.00 the Abyss Nexus teleport also works while mounted, falling, swimming or climbing a wall.
There are eight bells hidden in the world; ringing one unfogs the region around it.
40 — the Abyss (Restoration) puzzles. This guide's Abyss Puzzles page lists all forty with a checklist.
The region gets a wanted level and turns red on the map. To clear it you pay off the bounty at a Confessional: there are nine — three in Hernand, four in Demeniss, one in Pailune (after chapter 7) and one in Delesyia. MapMaster pins eight, the same minus the one in Delesyia.
3. Combat & Gear
The ability that moves objects, and the one most puzzles lean on. Hold L3 (Left Stick on Xbox, Tab on PC) to aim and release to fire the Axiom Grapple; then L2 / LT / Q pulls and R2 / RT pushes, and the right stick steers the object while you hold.
Your main weapons do not: swords, spears, hammers and bows never wear out. Only some makeshift pickups — banners and the like — carry a durability stat; those are marked Irreparable, and when the stat hits zero they break and vanish from your inventory.
Yes, for free, and it is temporary. A Grindstone sharpens your weapon ("Reinforce Weapon") and an Anvil repairs your armour: each tops up a Reinforcement value that wears down as you hit and get hit. They stand in camps, bandit hideouts and outside boss arenas — early on, an Anvil at Bloomwood Ranch and a Grindstone at Timberturner Wainwright, both south-east of Hernand. Permanent improvement is a different thing: Refinement at a Blacksmith, paid in materials such as Iron Ore and Thin Hide. There is no portable anvil and no repair fee in scraps — an earlier version of this answer said there was, and it was wrong.
No. There is no equipment weight: heavy plate moves like cloth.
4. Economy & Crafting
Pick flowers and mine the high-priced ores. It is unglamorous and it works: about 100 silver coins covers you for a long time.
Small, Medium and Large Bags. They come as faction-quest rewards and from merchants. There is no weight limit to manage, only slots.
Refinement: permanent upgrades to weapons and armour, paid in materials — iron ore and thin hide for the early tiers. Sharpening and repair are not the smith's job; that is what the free grindstones and anvils in the world are for.
5. Chapters & Story Progression
A prologue, twelve chapters and an epilogue. The names, from the game: Dead of Night (prologue), The First Encounter, Golden Greed, Howling Hill, The Price of Knowledge, Guest Unbidden, Cracks in the Shield, Homecoming, Blood Coronation, The Sage of the Desert, Counterattack, Truth and Reality, and The Abyss.
Not a hard one. The world stays open after the credits, and the epilogue quest Journey's End sends you back to every region, so nothing optional gets locked away. What the walkthroughs describe changing is the story, not the content: Pailune at peace, Hernand holding a festival, Demeniss's hostile enemies gone once Caliburn is beaten. Two cautions for Chapter 12 itself: Damiane and Oongka cannot be played or summoned from The Final Battle until the chapter is done, and keep a manual save before Caliburn's gate and never pick "Give Up" during the Myurdin fight, because the gate cannot be entered again. No source we read documents an ending decided by your choices; the only second ending described (a hidden one) is gated by finishing all 40 Abyss Challenges — see the Epilogue.
Yes. After the Epilogue the world stays open, and a set of post-game quests — Journey's End — sends you back to the important people in each region. Everything optional you skipped is still there.
6. New Game+ and what is not there
A light one, since the free Enhanced Update (2.00.00, 25 August 2026). Once every main quest is done, the main menu lets you start a new game and carry over your Abyss Links and your silver; stats, skills and equipment stay with the old save, though the carried Abyss Links can be spent to learn skills again. Since patch 2.03.00, silver of 1,000 or more carried into the new game arrives as stackable silver pouches.
Nothing of the kind has been documented by the walkthroughs and wikis this page is checked against. Earlier versions of this FAQ listed a secret merchant, a cloak of invisibility, an endless labyrinth and a romance system; none of them exist, and they have been removed.
Cross-checked on 21 September 2026 and re-checked on 2 October 2026 against the Steam listing and patch notes and the guides of Game8, PowerPyx, VULKK, Fextralife, GameRant, VGC, PCGamesN, AllThings.how, Vandal, Eurogamer.es and EliteGuias; anything they did not confirm was cut. Not from a playthrough: nobody here has played it, and where the game itself proves a line wrong, the line goes.
7. Charting the Unknown, and the patches
The first expansion, out 29 October 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC at $24.99 / £19.99, announced at the 3 September State of Play for 15 October. On 30 September Pearl Abyss moved it back two weeks, saying it needs more development time for "a more polished and stable" game; it unlocks at 22:00 UTC (15:00 PT) on 29 October, which is 07:00 on 30 October in Korea and Japan. The story of Pywel continues with Kliff, Oongka and Damiane, and the trailer shows the three things that are new: diving (Kliff underwater with what looks like a shark companion), naval combat with Kliff captaining a ship, and a beachside house built with the base-building tools. Pearl Abyss promises new bosses, weapons and armour kits on top. Pre-ordering gets the Charter's Diving Set for Kliff and Oongka and the Charter's Light Diving Set for Damiane.
On 14 September Pearl Abyss said that "following a review of content and age rating requirements" the expansion will not be available in certain markets; the United Arab Emirates is confirmed and the full list has not been published. Pre-orders in those regions are closed and refunded — automatically on some platforms, on request on others. If you are outside those regions nothing changes for you. The press reads the content in question as romance; Pearl Abyss has not said.
The free Enhanced Update landed on 25 August 2026 and was followed by seven fix patches in four weeks: 2.00.01 (28 August), 2.00.02 (1 September), 2.01.00 (4 September), 2.02.00 (11 September), 2.03.00 (18 September), 2.03.01 (21 September) and 2.03.02 (23 September). They are stability and bug-fix patches — among them, Thornbriar Fortress not being liberatable, housing not unlocking at Howling Hill Camp with a full inventory, and items vanishing from Trade Goods Storage on some saves (all three fixed in 2.02.00). 2.03.00 fixes the opponent's horse being too fast in horse races, dispatched combat missions being cancelled by a save and reload, and quests with a waiting period that could be pushed through immediately; it also makes a New Game started from an existing save hand over its 1,000-plus silver as stackable pouches, and adds a Precise Movement option to Photo Mode. If a quest or fortress in this guide behaves differently from what we describe, check your version first.
Added on 14 September 2026 from Pearl Abyss's own Steam patch notes and DLC notice, Game Informer's State of Play coverage and GAMINGbible's report on the regional cancellations, which agree on the date, the price and the wording of the notice; the 2.03.00 line was added on 18 September 2026 from the same Steam patch notes, and the release date was re-checked on 2 October 2026 against Pearl Abyss's Steam notice of 30 September ("Charting the Unknown: Release Date Update"). Not from a playthrough — the expansion is not out yet.