interacting with NPCs was a priority, document reveals

Crimson Desert has become in the space of a few months one of the most followed and most anticipated games of 2025. It must be said that Pearl Abyss’ proposal has something to seduce, particularly with its high-end graphics and gameplay. quite incredible and unexpected richness for an open world Acion-RPG. But it’s not just gamers who are sensitive to the South Korean title of Pearl Abyss, Sony Interactive Entertainment too. During a presentation intended for Pearl Abyss shareholders, we learned that the Japanese manufacturer proposed to the Korean studio to make their PlayStation 5 exclusive. Information relayed by an economic blogger who attended this presentation, but who has since placed his article privately. But Pearl Abyss, no doubt flattered that Sony made it one of the standard bearers of its console, declined the proposal, believing that the game would be more profitable if it self-published its game on all the machines on which it is foreseen.

We’ve known it for a while now, but Asia, and more precisely China, Korea and Malaysia, are territories that interest Sony, for the quality of the games offered, reduced production times and a new lease of life. which has disappeared from Western studios. Without forgetting that the relations between the Japanese manufacturer and all these new emerging studios are also very good. Shuhei Yoshida is also one of the people who worked at Sony to build confidence in the new Asia in video games. To conclude, here are the points to remember from the presentation of Pearl Abyss, following the intervention of Sony and its attempt at exclusivity.

– Adding various features to the open world caused many delays in development.

– The games that Chairman Kim Dae-il considers his favorites are Red Dead Redemption and The Legend of Zelda: we have made efforts to implement a high degree of freedom in the game by referencing various games such as Assassin’s Creed , The Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption and The Legend of Zelda.

– We use our own engine, which gives us a particular advantage in this area.

– Interactivity with NPCs and the natural environment was a priority for us.

– Game elements were designed to allow for various interactions, such as using AI to have NPC AI make situational decisions to allow interaction in various ways. For example, running away from a battle based on level or number of people.

– There is also an in-game reputation system that changes depending on your actions. While many people enjoy playing games where the protagonist is the hero, Red Desert has elements that make you a hero or a villain depending on your actions.

– Assassin’s Creed gives you the freedom to climb on and over anything within your reach. The Legend of Zelda offers an even greater sense of spatial freedom, not only on the ground but also in the air with gliding. You will see all this in our game.

– We also worked hard to implement detailed changes in characters based on changes in temperature and time of day. We implemented behavior changes based on time of day and temperature differences, such as slowing down character actions when the temperature drops or at night. Implementation of these details is limited when using commercial engines such as Unreal Engine 5.

– Sony offered us an exclusivity deal (which would have prohibited us from releasing the game on Xbox for a certain period of time), but we decided to self-publish the game because we thought it would be more profitable.

– The game that was heavily referenced during initial production was The Witcher 3, and certain parts of the story were referenced as well.

– Sony felt that the game’s atmosphere and story are similar to Ghost of Tsushima, which sold over 10 million copies.