Crimson Desert has taken a beating from gaming media critics lately. Reviewers found the first few hours of gameplay deeply unsatisfying—and for good reason: the game has fundamental problems across the board. The dialogue feels anachronistic, the world-building is cobbled together from medieval tropes without coherent thought, and worst of all, the lore directly contradicts itself at almost every turn. The inconsistencies are so glaring that it’s hard for players to care about a world even the writers don’t seem to care about.
Cursing Like It’s the 2000s, Not the Medieval Era
One of the most egregious problems is the game’s dialogue. Pearl Abyss clearly wanted Crimson Desert to feel like The Witcher 3—a gritty medieval fantasy—but nobody bothered researching how people actually talked, or swore, during medieval times. Within the first five minutes of gameplay, you’ll hear the slur “cockswaggler,” a word that didn’t emerge until the 1880s and would be completely anachronistic for the medieval period. Other cursing includes “fucking,” “bastard,” and “freak”—all modern linguistic choices entirely out of place. The only historically accurate curse word is “stinking turd,” which has been in use since the 1200s.
A World Built On Apathy
Historically, medieval cursing centered on religious blasphemy—invoking God, saints, or damnation. Crimson Desert actually has multiple religious factions that could have made dialogue rich with spiritual invective, but these sects exist only because “RPGs need religion.” They feel like window dressing. The game never uses its own lore to inform how characters speak, which is a missed opportunity that compounds the feel of lazy writing.
A World in Constant Contradiction
But the contradictions go far deeper than cursing. One faction is introduced as disciplined royal guards, then immediately described as wandering mercenaries traveling from place to place. Another critical inconsistency: a noble house is portrayed as both powerful enough to form enemy alliances yet so weak they can’t handle local bandits. Perhaps most damning is a character whose backstory claims he became a bandit leader out of fear of noble responsibilities, yet other lore entries state he became a bandit leader seeking revenge—two irreconcilable motivations. For an AAA title with this scope and budget, the disconnect between narrative intent and execution is inexcusable. These aren’t subtle storytelling choices; they’re fundamental contradictions that undermine player immersion in a world that asks you to care deeply about its stakes. When even the writers appear indifferent to their own world, asking players to invest feels like a losing proposition for the game’s long-term engagement in Southeast Asia’s competitive MMO market.