It’s time for the epic adventure in Crimson Desert! This huge open world is full of action, adventure, danger, and treasures. You can explore vast lands, fight fierce enemies, complete quests, and farm valuable resources. However, the beginning might feel tough with all these activities. This Crimson Desert guide brings all the best tips to help you improve combat skills, survive longer, grow stronger, and enjoy your journey with your trusty horse from the start.

If you’re eager to play Crimson Desert all day and farm resources even when away from your PC, your perfect companion is OSLink. It lets you enjoy your adventure remotely on your mobile device, keeping your progress going smoothly. With OSLink, you can manage quests, explore the world, and level up your characters anytime, anywhere, so you never miss a moment of your epic journey.

Lost Your Path? Quests are the Helpers

Leveling up in Crimson Desert means exploring a huge open world filled with enemy battles, resource farming, and puzzles. As a beginner, it’s easy to get lost and not know where to go next. That’s where quests come in to help you.

 

You just need to follow the quests and make sure you stay within the quest area to progress faster. Most quests are simple, like talking to NPCs, going to specific locations, or defeating enemies. So, use quests as your guide to move forward and make your progress easier.

Don’t Forget About Early Bounties

Bounties are one of the best ways to earn extra money in the early game while exploring. These quests require you to track down nefarious individuals across the world. Just keep an eye out for purple paper icons on your mini-map, these indicate bounty notices. Accept the notice, hunt down the target, and bring them to jail to earn full rewards.

 

Remember, a deadly bounty only pays half, so always try to keep your target alive. Use your horse to easily carry them to jail and get the full rewards.

Playable Characters for Your Adventure 

You are not limited to just one character in Crimson Desert, but the game primarily focuses on a single main protagonist. As you progress through the story, you will unlock additional playable characters, each with their own playstyle, weapons, and abilities that can help in different situations.

 

Here are the playable characters in Crimson Desert:

• Kliff: Kliff is the main protagonist of the story. You control him from the beginning and throughout most main quests. He is a balanced and versatile fighter, making him ideal for both combat and story progression.

• Damiane: Damiane is a fast and agile fighter who becomes available as you progress through the story. She excels in speed-based combat and is well-suited for quick encounters and exploration.

• Oongka: Oongka is a powerful, heavy-hitting ally unlocked later in the game. He is best suited for tougher battles, capable of absorbing damage and breaking enemy defenses.

Each character has a unique playstyle and abilities. While you can switch between characters in certain situations, the main story is largely centered around Kliff, and character availability may depend on story progression.

Fast Travel Points for Easier Explorations 

Crimson Desert has a large open world with many areas to explore. Traveling everywhere on foot can take a lot of time, so using fast travel points will make your journey much easier. 

 

You can find these fast travel locations on the map as mysterious energy spots. These are connected to hidden Abyss technology and come in two types:

• Abyss Nexus: These are simple fast travel points that can be activated once you stand on them.

• Abyss Cresset: These are environmental puzzles that you need to solve. After solving them, you can gain an Abyss Artifact and unlock the fast travel point.

Start Your Life of Crime Adventure

In Crimson Desert, you can do crimes and steal resources from other people in the game, but to do that, you need to wear a mask to hide your identity. 

You can get your first Mask early in the game by farming bandits around Hernand or by completing an easy quest on the western side of Hernand: The Bounty Notice - Jeffrey. This will help you start stealing more easily. When you equip a mask, your identity is hidden, allowing you to steal items from different properties during your Crimson Desert gameplay. However, stealing comes with risks. 

 

Every time you steal, you lose Contribution points based on the faction you are stealing from and slowing down your ability to earn faction currencies. Also, if you get caught, you can be sent to jail and will need to spend money to get out. So, always try to steal valuable items to make it worth the risk.

Tip for Absolve Your Crimes: Go to the nearest church and clear your crimes by paying a simple penance. This will remove your bounty, reduce penalties, and help you avoid larger fines later.

Master Abyss Artifacts and Skill Tree Progress

If you want to defeat bosses in Crimson Desert, your basic attacks won’t be enough. This is where Skill Tree progression becomes essential, allowing you to strengthen your abilities and perform better in combat. Let’s take a look at how the Skill Tree works in this beginner guide:

Abyss Artifacts 

Abyss Artifacts are important resources used to unlock and upgrade skills in the Skill Tree, increasing your overall stats.

 

How to Get Abyss Artifacts: You can obtain Abyss Artifacts through combat, defeating powerful bosses, completing quests, filling the progress bar near the minimap by killing enemies, and solving Abyss Cresset puzzles.

Sealed Abyss Artifacts: These can be found during exploration, usually on small stone altars. They appear as purple icons on your minimap. After collecting them, you need to complete simple combat tasks to unseal and use them.

Tricky Tip: When you are at higher elevations, use the blinding light ability to reveal hidden areas. This helps you find more Sealed Abyss Artifacts easily.

Skill Tree 

The Skill Tree is used to unlock your skills. It branches into three types:

• Blue: Unlocks combat skills for the character and increases Stamina stats

• Green: Unlocks survival ability skills and increases Spirit stats

• Red: Unlocks defensive skills while increasing Health stats

You can use Abyss Artifacts to unlock new skills and upgrade them to become more powerful.

Tip: If you want to reset your skill tree setup, the Faded Abyss Artifact lets you refund all spent Abyss Artifacts and reset your skill tree. This allows you to restart and rebuild your setup anytime.

Early Skills to Unlock 

Unlock and upgrade these early skills to gain stronger combat advantages:

 

Blue Skills

• Armed Combat – Boosts your early basic attack damage with your melee weapon. Upgrading this further unlocks new weapon moves.

• Forward Slash and Turning Slash – Perform a forward dash and a spinning overhead strike to gain more advantage in battles.

Green Skills

• Keen Senses – Unlock survival skills like Parry, Dodge, and Counter attacks.

• Evasive Roll – Improve survival by rolling away to evade attacks.

These skills are very helpful for early combat, increasing your combat strength and survival to successfully win against tougher battles.

Get Advantage from Your Blacksmith

In Crimson Desert, you have a special Blacksmith who helps you craft your own arsenal of weapons, armor, and other equipment, making you a powerful combatant in battles. Here’s how the Blacksmith can support you, according to our Crimson Desert beginner guide:

 

Crafting Weapons and Armor: You can use crafting materials like iron ore, copper ore, and other resources to craft your own arsenal.

Gear Refinement: You can refine your gear through the Blacksmith to increase stats like defense, attack speed, attack power, and other core attributes, making combat much easier. You will need refining materials, which can be obtained by completing quests and fighting enemies.

Abyss Cores: Abyss Cores are attachments for your weapons and armor that provide extra buffs and passive effects. However, this feature unlocks later as you progress in the game.

Always Spend on Faction Contribution Shops

There are different faction types that you can see within Crimson Desert. You have a special feature for completing faction quests that are tied to specific factions to gain Contribution Points. The more faction quests you complete and Contribution Points you earn, the more you are rewarded with a special currency called Contribution Coins.

 

So, why are these Contribution Coins valuable? Each faction has a specific Contribution Shop. In these shops, you can spend your Contribution Coins to obtain special items like armor and weapons, which help with your progression.

Tip: Don’t fear spending your Contribution Coins in these shops, because you can sell the purchased unique items for the same price you spent.

Level Up Your Travel Buddy Early On

For explorations around the maps in Crimson Desert, your helpful travel buddy is the horse. You can obtain your horse in the Crimson Desert early game. This makes your explorations much easier, as you can summon the horse anytime nearby just by whistling. Not even that, your horse also has levels that improve its abilities:

 

• Speed up sprinting for faster travel

• Enhanced drifts for taking tight corners smoothly

• Allows for back kicks to help in combat

• Improved double jumps to clear more distance

However, during your adventure, the horse might get wounded. A damaged horse runs slower and is less productive for your explorations. Whenever you see blood on your horse’s body, you can:

• Use Force Healing Punches to heal them

• Or purchase healing items from the shop to heal them easily

Conclusion

Now get ready for your epic adventure with these Crimson Desert tips from our Crimson Desert beginner guide. You can master early combat skills, make your exploration easier with fast travel, refine your gear, and use many other tips to make your gameplay smoother. Also, keep your gameplay enjoyable even away from your PC with OSLink, and play remotely through your mobile to explore the open world and farm more resources anytime you want.