Black Desert is going to be a very divisive game

I went into the Black Desert Online beta weekend with very high hopes. I’d heard good stuff about it and am currently just waiting for Legion to be released for World of Warcraft. So I have a place in my life for an MMO right now. Unfortunately however, my hopes of a new regular game were relatively quickly dashed. Now I will fully admit that I didn’t get much time on the beta weekend, only about 7 hours or so.

At the beginning of the story, your character awakens in a cozy little village. Not only do you soon learn about a small, shadowy figure known as the “Black Spirit”; you also discover that you are one of a select few who can enter into contact with this being. The lack of extensive reviews on the game is understandable as everybody is just starting out with the title right now. Even those who’ve reached the upper levels within three consecutive days of grinding may not have enjoyed yet the full charm of the community-concentric content such as castle sieges and high level PvP.

The upcoming Western release will differ in many ways from the already launched Russian and Korean services, such as the game’s balancing, progression and monetization model. We are putting a lot of effort in the game’s Western localization. We are localizing approximate 2.5 million words into English, German and French. Black Desert Online content and game play systems will be adjusted to accommodate Western players and our differentiating business model.

Each class has an abundance of skills to pick from, each costing a certain number of skill points to buy, with some skills requiring the purchase of others in order to unlock them. It’s a deep system, marred largely by the seeming ease of most fights. Granted, I’m not at max level yet, but even the boss fights I’ve engaged in (solo) haven’t really pushed me. I’d like to attribute that to my superior skill, but I suspect PVE in the game is just on the easy side.

While not directly related to combat, the world’s interactivity - in the form of being able to climb and swim and generally explore the world - is also substantial. This means that I haven’t seen much of the game (it is an MMO after all, and they do say that the game begins after you hit level cap). The translation from Korean isn’t stellar, either, with “on the Improve” and other such awkward translations dotting the game.

I’ve heard it described before, but so far I haven’t encountered any frantic racing which would do that description justice. All the same, the freedom of movement is refreshing. The voice acting is, in a word, terrible - delivery is inconsistent and forced, and some of it is downright laughable. Hearing a soldier mutter his lines so that they could barely be heard made me glad there were subtitles.

Black Desert is going to be a very divisive game given that the focus is almost entirely on the combat, crafting and PvP to the detriment of everything else. But to its credit the combat really does feel great and I could easily see myself spending a good amount of time with it provided the enemies become less of a pushover later in the game. Similarly I can see great potential in the crafting system as it is very rewarding to go through an elaborate recipe in order to obtain a cool piece of gear, provided the market doesn't make crafting professions a net loss.