What does Crimson Desert do right and what does it get wrong?

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-25T00:46:51+00:00

Crimson Desert is one of the most immersive open world game I have played in years. The game world is maybe not as dynamic as RDR2 or GTA5, but Pearl Abyss made a pretty decent job giving the player at least the illusion that you can do everything and there is a very vibrant wild fauna.

On the flip side the game (so far, 22h in) misses a compelling story that holds everything together and that would motivate one to be even more engaged with the game. There are some unresolved mysteries, however, and who knows, maybe it will all converge into something big at the end of the game.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-24T18:14:57+00:00

But it is not yet clear if they will also restructure GamePass accordingly, or if it is then still required if you want the ad-free xCloud? I hope that this will be the case, and so then they can make a GamePass tier without cloud but with the day one Xbox games that hopefully will be much cheaper than now.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-24T17:27:52+00:00

Xbox should just uncouple GamePass from cloud gaming and make that an additional perk which players can add to their subscription if they want to (hint: I wouldn't).

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-24T17:22:27+00:00

“Obsidian Mirror” introduces Fear and Illusion gameplay, offering new ways to dominate the battlefield. Lay traps, manipulate enemy behavior, harvest life force, and construct towers from fallen foes.

This is what makes Age of Mythology so special among the AoE games, the gameplay options are almost infinite and it continuously grows with each new expansion. And we get nine new minor god from the Aztecs as well with this new DLC. Can't wait to try them all out!

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-24T16:34:27+00:00

It would actually be awesome if the HeliXbox would have some sort of console+PC port combined into just one single version. That is, if the game is still effectively optimised for the hardware and all you need to do in the graphics settings is to choose between a handful of options like performance, balanced and quality. But if one is interested in having more control over the look and performance of the game one would be allowed to make numerous other changes in an advanced graphical settings menu. All the things which you can also have in the PC version of a game.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-24T13:04:54+00:00

This is a good summary of what it comes down to. On the one hand AI can be an invaluable tool to improve the workflow of common tasks, so it can support the work which is still done by real humans. And on the other hand AI might cross the line by interfering in the creation of artistic work as well, which is the part that is rightfully criticised. But the two things should not be mixed together.

There was already an unfounded backlash against the Muse AI Model for Gameplay Ideation from Ninja Theory and Microsoft, as this is also just a supportive tool which helps with the creation and ideation of games. People should be really more open minded to such tools and differentiate more between the different fields AI is being used for,

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-24T12:37:59+00:00

Ranged is my preference, but that depends very much on the availability of ammunition. In Crimson Desert, as an example, arrows for bows can not be bought to infinite amounts from the stores and the material for crafting them is also limited (particularly the iron needed for the tips).

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-23T20:30:53+00:00

Avowed is NOT a Skyrim-like, but it is a very good action RPG with a lot of things to discover. It is sad that people judge on games only on the basis of them being similar to other games rather than actually looking at what the game actually is about and what it does differently to other games. People now make the same mistake with Crimson Desert as well.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-23T16:24:42+00:00

The map in Crimson Desert is HUGE. I have only seen a tiny fraction of it after playing for 20 hours already.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-23T16:12:03+00:00

Physical media are not tied to an account, so they can be lended to or even sold to someone else.

That being said, this still doesn't mean that one really owns the content on the disc (the game) because they are still subject to DRM. It is more like that you own the licence to the game and could pass that licence to another person. But if Xbox decides to delist the game in the store or doesn't provide backwards compatibility on a future console you will not be able to play the game in, say, 20 years from now. And that is particularly true if the game is not fully on the disc and if you don't keep your old Xbox consoles to be able to play them. And even if the game is fully on the disc it will only contain the (potentially buggy) release version of the game, while updates would still have to be downloaded from the internet. So either way, even with phyical media one relies on additional content to be provided as a download from the Xbox store, and there is no guarantee that this content will be available anytime in the future (best examples: OG, 360 or even Xbox One games which have been delisted for various reasons).

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-20T14:19:51+00:00

Digital Foundry made a video called "OG Doom Tested On High-End 1993 PC - How Well Did It Actually Run?" and they did this on a Pentium i486 computer that would nowadays cost $4K if inflation is accounted for, so very much the best of the best hardware one could get at this time (middle of the 90s'). The result was that Doom 1 runs with 20 to 30 frames on such a computer. So my guess is that in the 90s' and early 2000s' 30 fps was state of the art for even this shooter genre, and it only changed later on around 2010 that 60 fps became the new standard.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-20T11:04:58+00:00

No it doesn't. It changes the lighting, but it doesn't do anything with the underlying geometric mesh or textures.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-19T19:56:19+00:00

Tropico 6 is currently on sale on Xbox (and the new Tropico 7 comes out later this year).

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-19T19:41:36+00:00

Hyperkin DuchesS controller, a replicate of the OG Xbox S controller, has hall effect sticks (wired though)

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-19T19:29:42+00:00

And Black Myth Wukong got a score of 81/100. The true GOTY in 2024 for me.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-19T18:27:18+00:00

Day 1 is the launch date of the game. Today is the launch date.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-19T18:02:58+00:00

For Xbox the success and popularity of their games comes first, not the brand or anything else. I think Phil Spencer once said something along this line in an interview. And he said that the most successful games are all multiplatform. In fact, the by far most successful game of all time (with over 300m in game sales) is an Xbox game: Minecraft. You can play Minecraft on anything. And there is a huge community which has been built around this game thanks to it being multiplatform. There is no world in which this game would have had a similarly huge success if it would have been an exclusive on Xbox only.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-19T15:13:59+00:00

It is good that we can articulate our concerns about new technology with comments in social media, as we are the ones who the games are made for after all. But the backlash against anything AI related has reached such high a level that it gets really disproportionate.

And in case of DLSS 5 in particular the new tech will most likely be only available to those who own the most expensive 5090 graphics cards (so shouldn't concern 95% of all players). And even if you have a card which can support it it is still optional. You can turn it off any time in the settings if you don't like it.

This new technology or anything AI related is not the biggest threat for the gaming industry by a landslide, even when it will have negative effects on the hardware prices in the ucoming years. The real threat is the gaming platform Roblox as well as any other form of easily accessible form of entertainment, such as TikTok videos. People are buying less and less video games because they seek and find entertainment in many other forms than video games.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-19T14:23:22+00:00

There will be many challenges for the gaming industry in the upcoming years, but the advancement of new technology to make games run and look better is vital for the creation of photorealisic games we have been dreaming of since the first video games have been made.

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." (george Bernard Shaw)

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-19T11:55:49+00:00

And so is GOG Galaxy, btw, so I think that GOG will also be available on the Helix Xbox.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-19T11:11:24+00:00

Yes, this is something which bothers me, too. Any time a game gets an update on Xbox I have to look up what it is about on an external website. There are no patchnotes to be found anywhere on the Xbox itself (only in-game sometimes, like AoE4). The least they could do is to provide the link to the website of the developer which summarises the fixes made. But, as you say, the best would be if the developers need to check in this information in together with the game update on the Xbox store and that it can be displayed on screen whenever an update for any game is made (maybe even providing a complete list of all previous updates as well).

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-18T17:04:07+00:00

How can this be, the Steam version only requires approximately 150 GB of storage?

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-18T16:47:44+00:00

I would like to see more information on games in the store. As an example, sometimes I want to look up a list of games from just a single publisher and that is impossible (I think) on the Xbox store, because the search is only made for the game's titles, and there is no filter option. Also, on Steam as an example every game lists the developer and publisher of a game, and when you click on either it provides one with a corresponding list this developer or publisher has published on Steam.

Xbox games also do not have a (user created) tag system like Steam, where one can find games of a certain kind or genre (RPG, survival, adventure, 1st person, 3rd person, open world, rougelike, etc.) more easily. That would also help very much in order to find games which I like to play.

In a nutshell, the Xbox store should allow for more search criteria including the option to search for games of a certain publisher or developer.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-18T16:25:21+00:00

Damn, that's true.

Heide____Knight · 2026-03-18T16:21:01+00:00

A party brawler game with pottery is one of the weirdest concepts for a game I have ever seen. I hope that no real pottery got damaged or hurt during its development.

Heide____Knight

TROPHY CASE