There are no difficulty settings in Crimson Desert, and that’s probably a good thing

A lot of single-player games opt for giving you the opportunity to raise or lower the difficulty of the experience, opening the chance of completion up to a variety of skill levels.

Crimson Desert, however, is going down the route of a single difficulty setting akin to that of FromSoftware’s catalog or The Legend of Zelda series.

This design choice might be divisive, but we think it’s a good thing, and here’s why.

It’s good that Crimson Desert only has one difficulty option

There’s no doubt that Pearl Abyss has been leaning heavily into the open-world nature of Crimson Desert, allowing you to explore as you wish, uncovering whatever you can as you go. This ‘freedom’ element will be a big draw and lends itself completely to a ‘no difficulty’ style game, similar to those we mentioned earlier.

It also allows for incredible surprise boss battle moments that made both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom so great, something that could really make people think they’ll give it a try, especially those who don’t like a linear quest path.

As for how the difficulty actually scales, this is basically through how powerful the enemies are in the various areas. This means that as you progress Kliff and Co.’s abilities, you’ll be able to go back to the earlier regions and absolutely stomp on any adversaries that lie in wait.

Again, this is a big plus because you can go back and practice different fighting techniques or new abilities, ready for any big fights that you can’t overcome, or to simply get a little refresher if you’ve not played the game for a while.

On the flip side, there are obvious concerns that this will make Crimson Desert feel very Soulslike, but in our opinion, it’s very much going down the The Legend of Zelda path we’ve touched on a few times now. This shouldn’t deter you at all, and instead, will only emphasize Crimson Desert’s exploratory nature.

Whether you’re for or against the no difficulty options in Crimson Desert, it’ll be worth checking out just to see if Pearl Abyss has pulled off this behemoth of a single-player adventure.