Black Desert Online (PC) Preliminary Review (2024)

Note: This review is after a week of play, and does not reflect the entirety of the game’s content. As MMOs are huge, and this one in particular has a lot to do.

As I write this review, my sorceress, complete with fire-red eyelashes, hair, and ruddy skin, sleeps in a bed in her home. And no, I didn’t purchase the in-game lingerie, because clearly y’all were thinking it (although whatever people want to do with their game is their own business. Just be aware that your character looks at the camera when you pan around him or her. They know.). Leaving it idle, I regain energy at double the normal rate every three minutes, as opposed to every 30 when logged off. Yes, this game encourages you to idle in the game, to better regain energy that is used for its overwhelming myriad of tasks beyond combat.

Black Desert Online (PC) Preliminary Review (1)

Black Desert Online, hyped for its visuals and character creation, is a much more complex game than that. It’s almost overwhelming in the sheer mundanity of what you can do beyond just murdering imps, and I’ve barely been able to press onward due to just having so many quests to do.

And I love it.

MMOs thrive on quest density, and suffer due to how repetitive the game has to be to manage this. Mobs of enemies fill the map and these games start to become stale when you’ve killed the same cluster of bears in several different areas. It’s a persistent problem that eventually crops up with any game of its kind. The solutions I’ve found are twofold—either make fighting the enemies more dynamic and involved (such as Tera attempted to do, to the detriment of everything else), or give a lot of other things to do (Guild Wars 2, where you have a wide variety of actions you can perform as well as combat). Black Desert Online seems to do both, but takes it to an extreme that we haven’t seen since the earliest days of MMOs.

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The world of Black Desert is a complex set of systems that encourages investment from the player. Quest areas, such as farms and cities, don’t just provide more things for you to kill—they also have plots capable of supporting buildings and workers. There are two resources that govern this. The first is energy, which is used for nearly everything non-combat. Gathering resources, trading, building things, enhancing one’s chances, or even discussing certain topics with NPCs requires this. Secondly, players have Contribution points, earned through quests, which allow them in to activate nodes and invest energy and time into them. Renting buildings and hiring workers allows you to farm resources without doing it yourself, producing items and food items so you don’t have to spend energy for it.

It may sound boring—Ultima Online boasted players being able to build shelves and other decorative objects rather than combat, or simply farming or trading. MMOs dropped this fairly quickly, focusing solely on combat, and there has been a clamour for more immersive non-combat experiences. Black Desert provided that.

I spent tons of time trading—using a wagon to carry trade goods, dodging bandits to protect my precious supply of wishing kites or ogre excrement (yes, that’s a trade item). Running from towns and selling the devices, checking prices, and automatically travelling the distance actually turned out to be far more fun than I would expect of waiting, as there is no fast-travel. You have to cross the entire distance, though you can set waypoints that follow roads between points. I generally managed my workers while travelling or checked my storage and rented buildings, organizing which served as extra storage or as businesses to produce crafting and trading materials. You can, of course, play the rest of game while doing this. The world is absolutely huge—only a part of the map is accessible now (interestingly enough, not the part that includes the desert, which will be available later). And there are a LOT of quests—tons of daily repeatable quests, and just quests in general, that give you experience towards the many different aspects of your character.

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Fortunately, combat is strong, dynamic, and entertaining in Black Desert. I played a Sorceress, one who uses dark magic in melee, with raising slashes and bolts of darkness. All the combat manoeuvres save a scarce few use the keys surrounding WASD, such as E or F, making combinations fluid and quick to pull off even without a keypad. Hordes of enemies gather around you as you make your way along, dodging back and forth to avoid crippling smashes. Weaving through a crowd of enemies, tearing them apart, then charging up a giant bolt of darkness to obliterate them was exactly what I signed on for. The enemy designs are distinctive, though they hit all of the fantasy staples.

“There will always be more to do in the Black Desert.”

It looks great, though, even on low graphical settings. Your character has a sheen of water after emerging from a river, and the armour and character designs are fantastic. The racial and gender limitations of various classes don’t bother me at all, as each class is a distinct design and personality that comes through.

Synergy is the operative word in this game. You get XP for combat skills, XP for levels, Energy from unlocking knowledge in the game’s extensive collection of lore snippets (quite a few named characters have short background blurbs. When you’re waiting for you energy to come back, you can fight—if you get bored of that, you can fish. You can even leave the game on and not feel like you’re wasting time as you regain energy faster. The incentive to leave it on at all times is strange to me—it smacks of Eve, where you played the game in the background while doing other things—but it’s nice to see something that rewards you if you just idle, so players don’t feel pressured to get up and eat or walk around once in a while.

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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. The translation from Korean isn’t stellar, either, with “on the Improve” and other such awkward translations dotting the game.

The biggest issue for me is how dense the complexity makes the game. Crafting, particularly cooking, requires a lot of experimentation or wiki-diving, and finding out the game’s systems isn’t always represented, even in the quests. There are always quests that give you reasons to gather or play the many mini-games—moving a wheel-barrow requires you keep a cursor in between two points, and the fishing system is actually rather fun.

Like many MMO launches, this one had its issues—-mostly lying in difficulty redeeming preorder items, but there is a persistent spawning bug that made some quests unbeatable, where enemies would not reappear, leaving empty areas without foes to fight. They eventually reappear, but it needs to be fixed, as we all share a world. I found that competition for spawns wasn’t too bad without the bug—you don’t get quest credit or drops if someone ‘tags’ a foe, but you still get combat XP for fighting if you kill an enemy someone has already engaged.

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There are whole sections of the map I have not explored yet, and more that will be unlocked in further expansions. I am still playing, which is always a key for games, and will be reporting more when I hit end-game and see what’s available. There will always be more to do in the Black Desert.

The Reviewer did not redeem the item/horse package that was given with the review copy until AFTER the review was written. All experiences written within this review were without the aforementioned bonus content.

Black Desert Online (PC) Preliminary Review (2024)

FAQs

Black Desert Online (PC) Preliminary Review? ›

Black Desert Online, hyped for its visuals and character creation, is a much more complex game than that. It's almost overwhelming in the sheer mundanity of what you can do beyond just murdering imps, and I've barely been able to press onward due to just having so many quests to do.

Do you need a good PC to play Black Desert Online? ›

While the entry level specs are quite forgiving, in order to max out your graphics while playing BDO and pass the recommended system requirements test, your rig will need something a lot more powerful. In fact, your computer needs at least a GeForce GTX 970 or a Radeon RX 480 alongside an Intel Core i5-650.

Is Black Desert Online a good game? ›

Despite criticisms of grind and pay-to-win elements, its immersive combat, vast landscapes, and in-depth life simulation aspects make it a favourite among MMORPG players.

How many hours is Black Desert Online? ›

Powered by IGN Wiki Guides
Single-PlayerPolledMedian
Main Story13100h
Main + Extras14300h
Completionist61900h 23m
All PlayStyles33200h

Is Black Desert remastered better than Black Desert Online? ›

BDO Remastered is an improved version of the original Black Desert Online game. It features better graphics, a new controller scheme, and other optimizations. What's the difference between a remix song and a remastered song?

Can Black Desert run on low end PC? ›

Black Desert minimum requirements for Windows assume having at least Windows 10 (32-bit or ) operating system. Your processor should be Intel Core i3-530 2.9 GHz or a more powerful one. The minimum RAM requirement is 4 GB. As for a graphics card, it should be GTS 250, GeForce 9800 GTX, Radeon HD 3870 X2.

Is BDO CPU intensive? ›

The core problems with BDO's high CPU usage are things that only Pearl developers can truly fix. Using Xemcode for anti-cheat is horrible and the Coherent UI for things like store, marketplace, and other functions is just lazy programming.

Is Black Desert Online playable solo? ›

Much of the content in Black Desert Online is geared toward solo play. As there is no structure, you can interact with other players as little or as often as you want.

Can you play Black Desert Online without paying? ›

I should add that no subscription is required for Black Desert Online, just a one-time licensing purchase. Pearl Abyss does offer optional subscriptions which give you some benefits, such as the Value Pack and Secret Book of Old Moon.

How much does Black Desert Online cost per month? ›

Does Black Desert Online have a monthly fee? Not per se. It has these items you can purchase called 'Value Packs' that provide access to a special dye palette with unlimited usage, more inventory space, and other amenities that make certain aspects of the game less cumbersome.

Is Black Desert worth my time? ›

Game's not terrible, it has huge potential, but it also has flaws and issues that become very visible once you get much into the game, and lots of basic stuff to get started requires p2w, you could in theory get most of the stuff from in game market, but if you're a starting fresh it's not super easy to start.

Is Black Desert Online fully free? ›

Black Desert Online uses a free-to-play model in Korea, Japan and Russia, while in Taiwan, South East Asia, Europe, North America and South America the game uses a buy-to-play model.

Is Black Desert Online the best MMORPG? ›

PEARL ABYSS' BLACK DESERT WINS 'BEST MMO,' 'BEST MOBILE MMO', AND 'BEST EXPANSION' IN MMORPG. COM'S 2023 PLAYER CHOICE AWARDS.

Is Black Desert on Steam same as BDO? ›

Does Black Desert Online support the Steam Link when played from Steam? What is the difference between the Steam and classic PC versions of Black Desert Online? Both versions will be identical and updated at the same time. Black Desert Online is frequently updated with free expansions and evolving content.

What is requirement for Black Desert Online? ›

System Requirements

Memory: 8 GB RAM. Graphics: GeForce GTX 970, Radeon RX 480. Network: Broadband Internet connection. Storage: 80 GB available space.

How much RAM does Black Desert Online need? ›

The required RAM size to play Black Desert Online is 4 GB. Black Desert Online will not work with a lower RAM.

Can Black Desert be played offline? ›

The entire game rebalanced for it. All you had to do was pay $80 and you got Black Desert as a Standalone Offline game with the option (if you payed for the deluxe offline package) to extract your account from the Online game into a save file so you dont have to start your progress over.

Can you play Black Desert on PC for free? ›

Black Desert Online uses a free-to-play model in Korea, Japan and Russia, while in Taiwan, South East Asia, Europe, North America and South America the game uses a buy-to-play model.

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