All attacks in BDO are manually aimed with mouse look

Black Desert Online is gorgeous. While the character models can be beautiful in their own way, I’m far more in love with how convincing and organic the world feels. There’s a real display of restraint in the artwork, making Black Desert look like it’s set in medieval Europe until you realize that the person you’re buying a fishing rod from is a talking otter. That low-fantasy realism is aided by some stunning environmental lighting, which creates awesome sunsets and sunrises, and I enjoy the subtlety of the architecture.

So many fantasy MMORPGs try to wow you with fantastical cities that feel bombastic instead of impressive. But in Black Desert, there’s a simple elegance to many things, like a ruined castle perched on a cliff overlooking the sea that feels both wondrous and completely natural at the same time. There is no better example of just how appealing the aesthetics are in Black Desert Online than the character creation system that welcomes players after creating an account.

The amount of detail put into each part of character creation is staggering - in fact, Black Desert Online’s character creator is rivaled only by games like Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Fallout 4 in terms of how unique each character can be made to look. All attacks are manually aimed with mouse look, for instance. In my first hour, I spent a while wondering when the hell the game was going to tell me how to lock on - but it never does. That never comes.

BDO expects you to instead take to combat in a more fluid manner, dashing about and keeping your sights on the enemy like any other action game. Dodging, something often resigned to a skill in MMOs, is just dropped onto a double tap of a direction button… just like an action game. Over on my main character I’ve played about four or five hours of the game, and so far most of it has followed the pattern of killing and questing. I’m looking forward to getting into more of the extracurricular activities Black Desert Online has to offer - housing, fishing, that sort of thing. But as far as killing digital enemies goes, this is pretty satisfying.

On the minus side, this game’s going to be slammed once it goes wide tomorrow, and nothing exacerbates issues like a massive influx of fresh faces. Fingers crossed, everybody. Honestly I’ve no real idea what to expect in the game, which apparently goes beyond sculpting your character to perfection. There’s fighting things, and extensive housing system, crafting-basically a bunch of things I’ve only read about thus far. I didn’t get too far in the beta. I didn’t want to spoil anything.

The first closed beta test runs through December 22 and is 0to folks who pre ordered the game’s $99 Conqueror’s Package and some randomly selected folk. Publisher Daum Games has plenty of activities planned for the event, and hopefully I’ll get to experience some of them once this nonsense dies down. “I’m sorry to report that things are not as amazing as they seem in currently in the game,” the author said. “It is what it is: a very pretty but shallow game.”

The team is also well aware of the request for darker skin tones. This should be available for the release, along with additional Western-like face types. As for the endgame PvE component, the team is planning to add more open world bosses and they’re evaluating the possibility of adding PvE raids, but once again they will check the community’s interest first.

The game has already received some buzz due to the earlier release of its character creation suite, which allows players to choose from eight varied classes and customize a protagonist with some of the most impressive graphics on the market. Those who previously used the app and uploaded character templates to the game’s servers will be able to play with that character and embark on a gargantuan quest focusing on two conflicted nations, but there is plenty more for those willing to sink in extra time.