'Crimson Desert' boss battle Gamescom trailer is giving Monster Hunter, Witcher 3 vibes

What you need to know

• Pearl Abyss, the developer and publisher of the MMORPG Black Desert Online, has released a new trailer for its upcoming open-world action-RPG, Crimson Desert at Gamescom 2024.
• The trailer gives a glimpse of Crimson Desert's combat system as it displays the player character Kliff fighting off a gang of bandits and a giant monster called the White Horn.
• Crimson Desert is scheduled to be released in 2025 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC.

Gamescom 2024 hasn't even started yet but the developer and publisher of the Black Desert Online , Pearl Abyss, is kicking festivities off early by releasing a new Gamescom gameplay trailer for its next big upcoming Xbox title / upcoming PC title , Crimson Desert. This trailer showcases the game's brutal yet over-the-top combat system by pitting the player against a horde of bandits and a terrifying beast known as the White Horn.

For those unaware, Crimson Desert is an open-world, action-RPG set in a gritty fantasy world filled with warring factions and towering monstrosities looking to crush anything in their path. In this dark world, the player assumes the role of Kliff, a hardened who leads a mercenary band called the Greymane Free Company.

Your goal in this game is to help your mercenary band survive in this dark world by recruiting mighty warriors to bolster your group's numbers and completing jobs and bounties for clients to earn money that can be spent on purchasing supplies, weapons, and armor.

In the Gamescom 2024 trailer, we see Kliff in the middle of one of these jobs as he's been assigned to rescue a group of children kidnapped by superstitious bandits who believe they incur the wrath of a gigantic, barbaric monster called the White Horn.

Of course, Kliff doesn't buy into their unjustified reasons for kidnapping children and dispatches them with ease. When Kliff is interrogating the leader for information, the White Horn suddenly appears and proceeds to challenge our protagonist to a one-on-one fight to the death.

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During these moments we are given a demonstration of the game's combat system and it looks genuinely impressive. The combat system system feels reminiscent of action-RPGs like Monster Hunter and The Witcher , where you hunt giant monsters using complex combo attacks and anticipating their attack patterns to dodge or counter them.

What makes Crimson Desert's gameplay feel unique from its peers, at least according to the trailer, is how fast and brutal it is. When the Kliff was fighting the bandits, the player mixed in traditional sword & shield attacks with over-the-top, bone-breaking wrestling moves which looked so cool to watch.

Then during the White Horn boss fight, the beast violently assaults the player with a series of never-ending attacks while summoning hailstorms to crush them and preventing them from catching a break. Whenever the boss managed to hit Kliff, I really felt his pain as he was sent flying through the air and slammed into trees and rocks that dealt insane amounts of damage to him.

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Color me intrigued in this gritty action-RPG

What's crazy is that this is only the tip of the iceberg of Crimson Desert's combat system. Its previous trailer at Gamescom 2023 showed the player taking on armies of soldiers with martial arts, topping watch towers with explosive arrows, and even climbing up a giant monster's body to stab its weak points similar to Capcom's Dragon's Dogma 2 .

What's more is that Crimson Desert's combat system will be complemented by a gigantic open-world filled with secrets to uncover, lots of side activities and quests to partake in, a cast of intriguing characters to interact with, and an in-depth, enriching storyline.

If this is what we can expect Crimson Desert's combat to be like during its opening act, I can't imagine how crazy it will during the later parts of the game. However, we will have to wait until next year to find out if this game has what it takes to be one of the best Xbox games and best PC games as Crimson Desert is set to launch in 2025 for Xbox Series X|S , PlayStation 5, and PC.