Crimson Desert might have an enemy density problem, fans worry as they approach endgame
Something that struck me surprisingly early on into my Crimson Desert review playthrough is how long I could go without running into any enemies. Bandits sparsely scattered around, one or two bears lurking in the shadows ready to rip me to shreds, and later some shielded soldiers who seem to at least roam in larger numbers.
The real meat of baddies lurk in outposts and camps, just waiting for me to swoop in and liberate them. Putting them back in the hands of the good-mannered people of Pywel. Making the land a safer place and all that. Except, well… it doesn't seem to make for a very good videogame experience. At least for the endgame, anyway.
As some fans who are fast approaching that finishing line are starting to discover, all of the peace and tranquility is coming at a price—a dried-up pool of baddies to fight, increasingly long stretches without any combat encounters, and an ever-shrinking number of ways to complete combat challenges or grab Abyss Artifacts to spend in the skill tree.
It looks like Reddit user GullibleTerm3909 was one of the first to bring the issue forward. "I played for six hours yesterday and had TWO fights in total. TWO," they wrote. "And they took less than 10 seconds, because I basically one or two-shot them all."
This game has a pretty big issue, not many are realizing right now, due to the way, most are playing it and it will destroy some peoples enjoyment, including my own. PA - this NEEDS a fix for long-term enjoyment. from r/CrimsonDesert
As someone who's been going around and cleaning up tons of forts in my 100+ hours of playtime, I can say it's an issue I've also noticed. Sometimes it's nice to explore uninterrupted, but I've frequently been getting that little nagging feeling that I really should have encountered at least one or two bandits while I'm out picking peonies or hunting deer, my guard completely down and perfectly ambushable.
It becomes an even bigger problem when you consider two things: Challenges and Abyss Artifacts. Many of the challenges revolve around combat; kill X number of people with a spear, assassinate X number of enemies within X timeframe, block X arrows with your shield. You get the drill. They're things that are a little hard to do when there's no spearable bodies or arrows flying your way to block.
Combat is also the primary way of obtaining Abyss Artifacts, which are what you use to unlock and level up skills on the skill tree. That'd probably be fine if it was just Kliff, but there are technically two other playable characters to level up (though I still wonder why they were included in the first place). There's the secondary problem of Abyss Artifacts also serving as upgrade materials for refining armour and weapons. If you wanna go ham and max out a bunch of different pieces, no enemies to farm might cause a bit of a problem.
As GullibleTerm3909 points out, games like Skyrim managed to perfect this 15 years ago. Bandit camps or dungeons that would respawn enemies after a certain amount of time, and what I believe is generally a higher enemy density in the first place. Things like having forts be reclaimed by enemy factions or random events where you have to go and fight a horde of baddies would be a decent enough solution. With Pearl Abyss already making tons of changes to make the game a little less abrasive, I imagine it won't be long until the developer also tackles this issue.
Sure, you might argue clearing out the world of every enemy means you've probably put enough time into a game. But if someone's having fun, why should something as simple as no bad guys to hit be the reason they have to stop?