You know that part of Pirates of the Caribbean where the soldier tells Jack Sparrow that he's the worst pirate he's ever heard of, to which Jack responds gleefully, "but you have heard of me"? That's kind of how I feel about Crimson Desert.
Too narratively disjointed to stand among the best RPGs, too much of a stylistic hodgepodge of everybody's favorite open world experiences to deliver something unique, it's ambitious yet overfamiliar at the same time. In fact, I'd wager that if you asked anyone who's spent a couple of hours with it over the past week, they'd agree that the most immediately memorable thing about Pearl Abyss' latest is its confounding controls.
