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Crimson Desert Six Months On: 17 Patches, a Free Enhanced Update, and a Carry-Over That Keeps Only Abyss Links and Currency

Crimson Desert Enhanced key art: Kliff, Damiane and Oongka in front of the Enhanced title lockup. Image: Pearl Abyss.

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Updated 30 September 2026: Pearl Abyss has moved Charting the Unknown from 15 October to 29 October. The dates below have been corrected.

Crimson Desert launched on 19 March 2026. Since then Pearl Abyss has shipped 17 numbered patches, renamed the game Crimson Desert Enhanced with a free 2.00.00 update on 25 August, and put a paid expansion, Charting the Unknown, on pre-order for 29 October, moved from 15 October in a 30 September notice. This is every change that matters to a returning player, in date order, with the carry-over feature described on Pearl Abyss’s own terms rather than as New Game+. Our PS5 Pro review covers the launch build and the patches to 1.16.01; this picks up from there.

Crimson Desert Enhanced key art: Kliff, Damiane and Oongka in front of the Enhanced title lockup. Image: Pearl Abyss.
Image: Pearl Abyss.

17 patches from March to August

Pearl Abyss published its own tally on 12 August in an “Update Highlights” notice: 17 patches, more than 20 new features and content additions, 120 new mounts and pets, and 70 new outfits, equipment and items. Its per-patch summary, which does not claim to be complete, runs like this. Version 1.00.00 added item storage and improved controls. 1.01.00 added mounts. 1.02.00 expanded private storage and added a headgear visibility option. 1.03.00 gave each playable character new skills and improved the puzzles. 1.04.00 added difficulty settings, inventory UI improvements, keyboard, mouse and controller presets, better distant scenery and birds as pets. 1.05.00 added Boss Rematch and Re-blockade, plus legendary animal pets. 1.06.00 added special mounts, a display sheath option and a claw machine minigame. 1.07.00 added more bosses to rematch and unarmed combat skills for Damiane. 1.08.00 added a pond for keeping fish and a baby wyvern pet. 1.09.00 added controller remapping, small animal pets and farming improvements. 1.10.00 added wyverns as mounts, the Kuku bird chick and two minigames, pinball and orb roll. 1.11.00 added challenges for registering more pets. 1.12.00 added housing equipment, furniture and outdoor customisation, with quality-of-life changes for Damiane and Oongka. 1.13.00 added equipment and outfits, let you rest with pets, and opened the Abyss to Oongka and Damiane. 1.14.00 added cross-save between PC and console. 1.16.00 reworked trading.

Difficulty settings did not exist at launch; they arrived in 1.04.00. Cross-save reached PC and console in 1.14.00 and Mac in 2.02.00 on 11 September.

Trading overhaul, 1 August (1.16.00)

Pearl Abyss added 133 trading posts, including the merchant at Pailune Trading Post, some of them gated behind quest progress, and 24 new high-value trade goods alongside four regular ones. Prices at royal trading posts were quadrupled, posts that are hard to reach by wagon now pay more, and prices fall when too many goods are sold at one location. Packaged goods stack to 10 or 100 depending on price, unpackaged goods to 5 or 50 a slot, and wagons no longer vanish after a royal delivery. Because prices decay, a route that pays well once pays less on repeat, so we stamp every “best route” figure to the patch it was measured on.

Patch 2.01.00 on 4 September added a Gold Bar Investment dispatch mission and multiplied the Camp Funds from donating silver by 10.

Crimson Desert Enhanced, 25 August (2.00.00)

Patch 2.00.00 is free to every existing owner on every platform, including the Mac App Store, which had lagged behind on earlier patches. Pearl Abyss lists four things under the Enhanced banner: new cutscenes and story moments through the main questline, with added knowledge, items, memory fragments and dialogue for the bosses; five new voice languages (German, French, Spanish, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese) and Arabic as a new interface and subtitle language; a reworked skill system; and a carry-over feature for new games.

Learning a skill with Abyss Artifacts on one character now grants the same number of “Abyss Links” to the other playable characters, and each character spends their own Links. Skill resets are per character rather than for the whole roster, and a reset refunds that character’s Links. The first launch after the update wipes all existing skill progression and refunds everything spent, Abyss Artifacts included, so every returning save rebuilds its trees once. Kliff gets eight new skills, unlocked after completing “Enlightenment” in Chapter 9, and each has its own requirement in the tree. Water Stride needs Double Jump level 2 and one Abyss Artifact, and lets Kliff run across the surface of water on stamina instead of swimming. Enhanced Flight comes automatically with Flight level 3 and lets you dive straight down while flying. Flowing Force Palm comes with Force Palm level 4 and strengthens the first two hits while adding an extra attack to the sequence. Ascending Force Palm comes with Force Palm level 5 and sends Kliff higher on the aerial version. Descending Force Palm comes with Diving Force Palm level 2 and chains an aerial Force Palm straight into a downward strike. Enraged Parry needs Keen Senses level 4 and two Abyss Artifacts, and lets you parry while mid-action. Finishing Rush comes with Armed Combat level 6 and carries a light attack chain onto the next nearby enemy. Serenity comes with Focus level 4 and increases Spirit recovery while focusing.

Also in 2.00.00: the Golden Star fight is split into phases with phase-specific attacks; a “Flying Mount Controls” option under Others, then Input, offers camera-relative or manual flight; companions take less damage; and Bilwise now hands out Double Jump during the quest “Unexpected Gift”.

The carry-over keeps Abyss Links and currency, nothing else

Pearl Abyss’s wording: the update “added a feature that allows you to carry over Abyss Links and other in-game currency from an existing save file when starting a new game,” and it “is available after completing all main quests.” That is the complete first-party description, and it names two things that transfer.

We have checked the rest. Gear, mounts, pets, housing, knowledge and story progress start from zero. The option appears only after the final main quest: start a new game, pick a difficulty, and confirm the carry-over when prompted before the prologue. Pearl Abyss does not use the phrase New Game+ anywhere in its notes, and the feature does not keep a build intact, so we do not use the phrase either. What it does do is let the Abyss Links banked on a finished save put a second character into a working skill set far faster than a fresh start.

Two patches and a sale since Enhanced

Versions 2.00.01 and 2.00.02 were hotfixes. Version 2.01.00 on 4 September was mostly fixes, plus the dispatch mission and camp donation change above, tilt in photo mode, and a fix for indoor lighting on M5 Macs. Version 2.02.00 on 11 September added Mac cross-save and fixed a crash when starting a new game with DLSS Frame Generation on, which affects anyone planning to use the carry-over on PC.

The game’s first sale, 20 percent off on every platform, ran from 25 August to 9 or 10 September depending on region, and has ended.

Charting the Unknown, 29 October

Charting the Unknown banner from the Pearl Abyss pre-order notice, with the DLC title lockup over the sea. Image: Pearl Abyss.
Crimson Desert Enhanced: Charting the Unknown. Image: Pearl Abyss.

The paid expansion releases on 29 October 2026 at 22:00 UTC, which is 23:00 CET, 15:00 PT and 18:00 ET the same day. Pearl Abyss moved it from 15 October in a notice on 30 September, saying it needed additional development time for a more polished and stable experience. Pearl Abyss’s page lists ships you command and islands off Pywel’s coast, diving for underwater ruins and treasure, facilities you rent and manage for income, an upgraded Housing mode, deeper conversations with NPCs, and new story threads for Kliff, Oongka and Damiane. Pre-orders opened on 3 September with a Charter’s Diving Set for Kliff and Oongka and a Charter’s Light Diving Set for Damiane as the bonus. It will not be on the Mac App Store at launch, and after an age-rating review it will not be sold in certain markets, with pre-orders there closed and refunded. Pearl Abyss’s page does not state a price, so check your store before ordering.

The PlayTheory take

Six months of near-weekly patches moved Crimson Desert a long way from its launch build, and most of the movement was in the systems people complained about first: difficulty, controls, storage, the economy. Enhanced reads as a second edition rather than a fix list. Plan a second run around a faster skill build, not around keeping your gear. Our release calendar has Charting the Unknown on 29 October, and we will log the DLC patch notes the day they land.

Sources

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