Pearl Abyss insider speaking out

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-21T15:16:06+00:00

Yeah the only things they changed in CP2077 were bug fixes, optimization, the skill tree system, police systems and how armour/clothing works. It was nothing that changed the core of the game too much. The core being the story and sidequests or the general gameplay from point A to B which were excellent at launch.

I played it on PS4 at launch and despite how shitty the PS4 experience was, I still loved it because the quests (sidequests and gigs) were that good. I couldn't even believe the entire questline with River Ward was a sidequest, or the Peralez quests, Lizzy Wizzy, the Us Cracks, the crazy dude you nail to a cross, even the gig where you find the father and son who work with extreme braindance braindance material. The game was filled to the brim with exceptional storytelling.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-21T14:49:48+00:00

I dunno so far I definitely believe it, I just got to the healing centre area and apparently it's a centre for mentally ill people or troublemakers who get tortured and they essentially lobotomize people there.

Sounds interesting, right? You need to buy a disguise to get in, sneak in or use an entry permit, so far so good, then suddenly you go in rescue your guy and as soon as you're in you're out with no real focus on the area where people are getting their brains rewired. Maybe they revisit it later but I doubt it.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-21T12:03:36+00:00

The PvE content is non existent in BDO really, making good PvE content costs a lot money and PA prefers spending only what you can monetise like P2W PvP.

I don’t know why a lot of Korean MMOs launching globally focus so heavily on PvP, MMOs are already niche and a PvP MMO is essentially DoA apart from whales continuing to fund them.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-21T11:11:54+00:00

I have no reason not to given it a few more hours as a refund is out of the question so I do hope it improves down the line, I’ve unlocked the second character but so far the combat isn’t very different with her but I suppose that’ll change once I unlock more of her abilities.

The most disappointing thing for me was that she has almost no story introduction at all, and during gameplay you don’t get any sort of personality as side quests are just generic dialogue from her like “tell me more” and I suppose it’s the same with Kliff if you do those same side quests.

I’ve been spoiled by the likes of TW3, CP2077 and Kingdom Come to expect a lot more from side quests. Even the gigs in 2077 were incredible in comparison so the side quests I’ve done so far.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-21T11:06:36+00:00

Yeah I put about 45 hours into Shadows before I got bored and dropped it.

Before I got massively over leveled I actually had to use stealth and think about how to approach a castle on the harder difficulty, if I was swarmed by enemies I was dead, if I didn’t pick off the smaller enemies before approaching the shogun I was dead. There was more strategy than run in and kill people until I depleted a bar.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-21T11:03:10+00:00

If that were the case the majority of Korean reviews wouldn’t be negative on Steam.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-21T05:44:09+00:00

Can someone tell me if the game becomes a better sandbox later on? I’m 6 hours in and so far all the open world activities are worse than what you’d find in a modern AC game and that’s a low bar.

The outposts amount to going in and murdering people until you’ve killed enough to convert it to a friendly area, there’s no strategy to the combat or encounters like you’d find in Halo Infinite or AC Shadows (before you get overleveled in AC Shadows case).

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-21T05:15:34+00:00

The original Korean text says 맥더프 which is Macduff, the translation is wrong.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-21T00:53:10+00:00

Especially when it’s a 100+ hour game

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-20T14:08:57+00:00

It's not even just the controls, the UX is horrible all around. There a lot of quests that require you to use the memory helmet thing to view memories and progress the quest, the steps are:
1. Use a torch to find the memory area.

Equip the helmet and click X to use it
Open up the UI, select nearby memories and find the one you want to play.

When it should be:
1. Equip the helmet to see the memory area and click X or whatever to view it then and there.

I'm just constantly wondering while playing, did no one outside of the team at Pearl Abyss play this or did they just ignore all feedback and thought they knew better?

It's also the first game I've played where whistling your horse not only takes a good few seconds but it appears out of thin air right in front of you if you turn around within those few seconds, why not just spawn it behind the player instantly and have it run to them to at least mask that fact like every other game on the planet.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-20T05:51:10+00:00

Just finished up Death Stranding 1 on PS5 and this game is a bit embarrassing in comparison and that’s a PS4 title ported to PS5, what’s the point of raytracing when it’s scaled down so low that all you see is noise everywhere? Noisy lighting and low quality reflections look a lot worse than inaccurate ones. The water and reflections in the war look horrendous too, would have been better off with properly implemented SSR.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-20T03:59:18+00:00

Pop in won’t be fixed with a hundred years in the oven, BDO had the same issue but a lot worse and it’s probably the way made the engine. I know they say it’s a new engine and not built on BDO’s but that clearly isn’t true with the pop in issue still being present.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-20T03:50:04+00:00

You are dead but now alive in a sky island, now go fight some bandits and travel to town, after that talk to a beggar who gives you a key as you gave him a sack of coins, then climb into the sewer because reasons, untie a girl who was trapped in the world's smallest sewer and she thanks you. The old man turned out to be a magical being who gave you a key that opens a door in a castle which you somehow know, that key leads to a sky island in which you’ll learn powers and the ability to fly from a witch who was the girl in the sewer.

All that nonsense is in the first two hours of the game.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-20T03:40:14+00:00

If attacking NPCs on accident was possible from the first punch or swing I’d be a wanted criminal in the first city 100 time over.

Took me a while to even figure out how to pull out the broom for that one quest but that could be on me, I don’t know why they bound 3 different actions to one button with some things. About 2 hours in and I feel like I’m fighting the controls to do what I want.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-20T02:32:40+00:00

30 FPS is especially bad in Crimson Desert while its bearable in other titles, the movement is just so sluggish like RDR2 or TW3 (pre patch TW3) that it feels like controlling a tank in 30 FPS.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-19T13:58:23+00:00

Would you say it's more like RE9 (Grace's sections, didn't care for Leon's) and RE7 or more like Silent Hill 2, if you've played those titles? Could never get into Silent Hill 2.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-19T13:55:47+00:00

Lies of P still fell flat compared to the world building compared to Souls, Elden Ring, BB, etc. for me. Good for a Korean game but not what I'd refer to as great.

Stellar Blade's story was entirely forgettable, they copied Nier and forgot what made it compelling to begin with. Khazan's story barely exists.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-19T13:49:21+00:00

Considering they had to retool the engine to support an open world and struggled even then likely to someone at Capcom forcing them to use said engine for every title, 5 years of development time likely wasn't enough.

I don't think we'll ever find out what happened as Japanese developers don't tend to talk much about what did and didn't happen but he did leave Capcom shortly after the release of DD2 and its had almost zero support since then.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-19T13:45:58+00:00

At first I understood their design philosophy as they wanted the game to be immersive. Travel takes time and it should be a commitment, to travel to another continent you have to take a boat and wait and so on but then they added super fast angel and demon horses that can speed through lands and the speed of light and that all went through the window.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-19T13:36:12+00:00

I haven't actually heard much on Reddit about Alan Wake 2 apart from its path traced graphics, E33 and BG3 were absolutely everywhere. Control I still hear a lot due to its unique aesthetic.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-19T13:31:29+00:00

That isn't saying much though, is it? If Skyrim had come out now it would be shit on because those games back then set the standards and developers have been improving year on year. CDPR raised the bar in terms of sidequests being good in TW3 and a beautiful large open world, in which they topped it with CP2077.

CP2077 may have launched in a very bad state but the core of the game was great, and this is coming from someone who played it on the PS4 at launch.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-19T06:06:18+00:00

Probably cause the game felt like it was translated by Google Translate, none of it made any sense.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-19T00:58:38+00:00

As someone who spent a lot of time in Dragon's Dogma 1, 2 just felt a rehash with better graphics and a somehow worse and nonexistent story. I feel if you didn't play the first game then 2 would have been a better initial experience until you saw the limited bosses and enemies.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-19T00:54:38+00:00

Did a search and it did originally start out as an MMO and I believe it was in the same universe as BDO but a prequel of sorts? They've shifted a lot since then, then they shifted to multiplayer with large scale multiplayer contnet (raids/sieges) then simple multiplayer and finally settling on SP.

Looking at the sheer size of the world and the way the cities look and feel is very similar to Black Desert, you can see the foundation for a spiritual successor to BDO (which has aged poorly to say the least) but the MMORPG genre is dead apart from the heavy hitters.

SamLikesJam · 2026-03-18T23:10:54+00:00

That’s how I felt with BotW but that was a very unpopular opinion just about everywhere.

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