Endgame Guide

Overview

After completing the Epilogue of Crimson Desert, the world of Pywel remains fully open for continued exploration and progression. The Epilogue consists of nine short quests that revisit key locations and characters, and once the credits roll, your save file continues from the post-Epilogue state. While the main story can be completed in roughly 50 to 80 hours depending on how much side content you engage with along the way, full completion of all endgame content can push total playtime well past 150 hours. Trophy hunters aiming for 100% may spend upwards of 250 to 300 hours.

This guide covers every major activity and progression system available in the post-game, from clearing sanctums and maxing gear to collecting every pet and reaching 100% completion across all challenge categories.

Endgame Priorities

Not all endgame activities are created equal. Some unlock further progression while others are purely cosmetic or completionist goals. The following table ranks the most impactful endgame objectives by their effect on your overall power and game progression.

Sanctum Challenges and Witches

There are 16 corrupted Sanctums scattered across the map, each tied to one of the game's witches. Cleansing a Sanctum requires solving a physics-based puzzle and then defeating an Antumbra boss at the end. These fights rank among the hardest encounters in the game, and several drop unique weapon rewards.

You cannot cleanse a Sanctum unless you have met the witch it belongs to. You can clear the enemies and liberate the location beforehand, but the actual cleansing ritual requires the witch's involvement. The Witch of Wisdom, Elowen, is unlocked during Chapter 5 and is required for solving many of the Sanctum puzzles, including the Sanctum of Temperance.

Notable Sanctum Rewards

Antumbra's Sword at the Sanctum of Absolution is widely considered one of the toughest early encounters. It summons apparitions and launches wide sword waves that require precise dodging. However, the reward is worth the effort. Antumbra's Spear at the Sanctum of Penitence can be stunned using Force Palm, which creates a reliable opening for burst damage. Learning each boss variant's stagger windows is key to clearing the harder Sanctums efficiently.

For full witch locations and puzzle solutions for each Sanctum, see the dedicated guides.

Abyss Paths and Element Unlocks

Abyss Artifacts serve as the primary skill currency in Crimson Desert. You earn them by defeating enemies, completing quests, finding Abyss Cressets at Secret Places, purchasing them from certain vendors, and collecting Sealed Abyss Artifacts from stone altars throughout the open world. In the endgame, your main goal is to gather every remaining artifact to fully flesh out your skill tree.

The skill tree is split into three color-coded branches. The Red tree governs stamina and flight-related abilities, the Blue tree handles health and unarmed combat, and the Green tree covers spirit-based skills. Completing every branch requires a substantial number of Abyss Artifacts, so post-game farming is essential for full builds.

Imbue Elements

Imbue Elements are not unlocked by spending Abyss Artifacts in the skill tree. Instead, they are gated behind Abyss puzzles at Spires. You may have collected a large stockpile of artifacts and still be unable to unlock a particular element because the corresponding Spire puzzle has not been completed. Each Spire grants a specific elemental ability upon completion.

Make sure to visit every Spire in the post-game if you skipped any during the story. The elemental skills they unlock are powerful endgame tools, particularly Lightning Surge for crowd control and Frost Mantle for defensive builds.

Abyss Cressets and Secret Places

There are 60 Secret Place locations marked on the map as white search areas with a question mark icon. Each Secret Place contains an Abyss Cresset that grants one Abyss Artifact and unlocks a Fast Travel Point. Reaching these Cressets often requires creative traversal, such as climbing sheer cliff faces, gliding from high points, or finding hidden paths through cave systems.

If you are having trouble locating them all, look for the white question mark icons on your map. Using your lantern near a suspected location causes nearby Abyss items to emit white light, making them easier to spot from a distance. Sealed Abyss Artifacts on stone altars also appear as purple icons on the minimap when you get close.

Maxing Out Greymane Camp

The Greymane Camp at Howling Hill is your central hub for crafting, trading, and dispatching comrades on resource-gathering missions. Fully upgrading the camp requires three major expansions, each demanding increasing numbers of recruited comrades along with food, silver, and armaments. For a full breakdown, see the Camp Expansion Guide.

Expansion Requirements

Dispatch Missions

Dispatch missions are the primary engine for passive resource generation. Ross manages assignments at the camp, and the system runs on in-game time, producing materials while you explore, fight, or pursue other objectives. Crafting, Construction, Engineering, and Exploration dispatches each require comrades with matching skills.

In the endgame, prioritize armament-producing dispatch missions such as the Gorthak Ironworks dispatch in Delesyia, which generates thousands of armaments per run. Stockpiling armaments early makes the third camp expansion significantly smoother.

Reconstructing Pailune

After completing Chapter 7 (Time to Face Justice), the faction questline "Reconstructing Pailune" unlocks. This relocates Greymane operations northward and opens large-scale construction projects including the Pailune Council and Pailune Institute. Completing this questline represents the final evolution of your camp, giving dispatched recruits meaningful long-term work and expanding the Greymanes' influence across northern Pywel.

Liberating All Remaining Locations

Liberation is one of the core open-world progression mechanics in Crimson Desert. It involves clearing enemy-occupied territories across Pywel by defeating hostile forces and their leaders. For a full walkthrough, see the Base Liberation Guide.

Once an area is liberated, the world state changes visibly. Residents move back in, structures are rebuilt, new vendors appear, and trade routes open up. Several types of locations can be liberated:

• Fortresses and Castles: Major strongholds held by hostile factions, including the Captured Fortress and the Calphade siege

• Blockaded Forts: Mid-sized fortifications that block trade routes and supply lines

• Bandit and Faction Camps: Smaller enemy encampments scattered across the open world

Liberating every location on the map is not just a completionist goal. Each freed settlement adds vendors, trade connections, and sometimes unique NPC questlines that are only available after liberation. Completing all liberation objectives is also required for certain Exploration Challenges.

Sealed Artifact Challenges

There are 141 Sealed Abyss Artifacts in total, scattered across Pywel on stone altars. Each one unlocks a specific challenge within the game's challenge system. The artifacts appear as purple icons on your minimap when you are nearby and emit white light when you hold up your lantern from a distance.

Critical warning: The game does not track your actions retroactively. If you spend forty hours mastering the bow before finding the archery artifact, zero of those bow kills will count toward your challenge progress. This means collecting Sealed Abyss Artifacts should be one of your first priorities in the endgame so that all subsequent gameplay counts toward completion.

Challenge Categories

Prioritize the watchtower-related Combat Challenges (Battle Challenge: Sinking Fort and Cannon: Barraging Cannon V) as early as possible in the endgame. These involve specific scripted scenarios that are easier to tackle while the encounters are still fresh. Exploration Challenges, by contrast, are puzzles found directly in the open world and do not require Sealed Abyss Artifacts to begin.

Waterfall Caves and Secret Locations

There are 43 Waterside Caves hidden behind waterfalls throughout Pywel. Each one contains a treasure chest with valuable loot, ranging from crafting resources to weapons and rare materials.

How to Enter Waterfall Caves

To access a Waterside Cave, approach a waterfall and perform a Stab (hold R1 + Square on PlayStation, RB + X on Xbox, then release). Kliff will thrust his weapon through the water curtain and enter the cave behind it. Not every waterfall hides a cave. Look for a small platform with stacked stones at the base of the waterfall, which indicates an accessible interior.

If you are struggling to find all 43, complete the Dragon's Stone Chamber Puzzle. This puzzle rewards you by marking every remaining waterfall cave on your world map, turning a tedious search into a straightforward checklist.

Gear Refinement Past Level 4

Equipment refinement in Crimson Desert is handled through the refining system. Early refinement levels (+1 through +4) require standard crafting materials, but at +5 and above, Abyss Artifacts become a required ingredient alongside rarer materials. This is one of the primary Abyss Artifact sinks in the endgame and the reason why collecting all 141 Sealed Abyss Artifacts is so important.

Higher refinement levels provide significant stat boosts but also demand increasingly scarce resources. Plan your upgrades carefully and focus on your primary weapon set first before spreading resources across secondary loadouts.

Abyss Gear Synthesis and Greater Abyss Gears

Abyss Gears are slottable items that provide passive bonuses to your character. For a full breakdown, see the Abyss Gear Guide. Through synthesis, you can combine duplicate Abyss Gears into a higher level. For example, two Destruction Lv 1 gears combine into one Destruction Lv 2. You must first purchase and learn the respective synthesis blueprint, which each witch sells separately.

Greater Abyss Gears

Special synthesis at a witch has a 4% chance to produce a "Greater" variant of the Abyss Gear. Greater Abyss Gears provide substantially stronger bonuses compared to their standard versions. For instance, a Greater variant might grant critical hit rate at level 10 instead of the standard level 3 threshold. Because of the low 4% success rate, crafting Greater Abyss Gears is a long-term endgame grind that requires stockpiling duplicate standard gears.

The most efficient approach is to farm duplicate Abyss Gears from repeatable content (sanctum re-runs, elite enemy drops, and vendor purchases) and then batch-synthesize them at a witch. Keep your best standard gears equipped while attempting Greater synthesis with your extras.

Maxing NPC Trust for All Vendors

Every vendor and NPC in Pywel has a trust meter that tracks your relationship with them. For a detailed breakdown of the system mechanics, see the NPC Trust System guide. Positive interactions fill the green side of the meter, while negative actions such as theft or assault push it into the red.

Building Trust

There are three primary methods for building trust:

• Daily Greetings: Speaking to a merchant each day grants +5 Trust. After roughly 20 consecutive daily greetings, you reach maximum trust with that NPC.

• Completing Requests: Merchants sometimes have fetch quests or delivery tasks that grant large trust bonuses upon completion.

• Gift Giving: Presenting items that an NPC values can provide significant trust boosts, though the right gift varies by character.

Trade Agreements and Supply Contracts

At maximum trust, vendors offer Trade Agreements and Supply Contracts for purchase. When activated from your inventory, these special items expand the corresponding shop at Greymane Camp. This effectively centralizes vendor inventories from across Pywel at your home base, saving enormous travel time in the endgame. Maxing trust with every merchant you encounter should be an ongoing goal throughout your playthrough, but the post-game is the ideal time to finish off any remaining NPCs.

Collecting All Pets

The pet system is built around a trust mechanic. Every dog and cat you encounter in the world starts at zero trust, and you need to push that number to 100 before you can adopt the animal as your companion. You can have up to 30 pets total, but only one can be actively summoned at any time.

Trust Building for Pets

Once a pet reaches 100 trust, hold the button prompt to claim it. Summoned dogs will automatically loot fallen enemies on the battlefield, running around to collect items from defeated foes. Pets have no loot filter, so they pick up everything including low-value junk. You can purchase purely cosmetic Pet Armor at Tailor Shops.

Collecting all 30 pets is required for the Life Challenge "Natural Collector" and the corresponding trophy. Spread your daily visits across multiple animals to maximize efficiency rather than focusing on one pet at a time.

Legendary Horses

There are three legendary horses in Crimson Desert, each specializing in a different area. Taming them requires at least 6 Stamina to survive the bucking mini-game. If your stamina runs out during the attempt, you get thrown and must try again.

After taming a legendary horse, level it up by feeding it horse food (purchased from any saddler), caressing it (target the horse and press the interact button for free XP), or simply riding it over time. Camora is generally considered the best pick for the endgame since Royler handles exploration and Rokade handles tanking, while Camora adds offensive power for mounted combat encounters.

New Game Plus

As of the latest patches (Version 1.00.03, March 2026), Crimson Desert does not include a New Game Plus mode at launch. After completing the story and Epilogue, the game allows you to continue exploring Pywel in your existing save file. Pearl Abyss has not officially confirmed whether New Game Plus will be added in a future update, though community interest in the feature remains high.

If New Game Plus is added in a future patch, it will likely allow players to retain character stats, skills, and equipment while replaying the story against stronger enemies. Check the official patch notes and community channels for announcements regarding this feature.

Reaching 100% Completion

Full completion in Crimson Desert involves clearing every challenge across all categories, finding every collectible, and completing every quest. The total number of challenges exceeds 350, with the Exploration category making up more than half of that count.

Completion Checklist

• 141 Sealed Abyss Artifacts: Found on stone altars throughout Pywel. Appear as purple icons on the minimap when nearby.

• 60 Secret Places (Abyss Cressets): Each grants one Abyss Artifact and unlocks a Fast Travel Point.

• 43 Waterside Caves: Hidden behind waterfalls. Complete the Dragon's Stone Chamber Puzzle to reveal them all on the map.

• 16 Sanctums: Cleanse all corrupted Sanctums by solving puzzles and defeating Antumbra bosses.

• All Weapon Mastery Challenges: 10 subcategories with 6 to 10 challenges each (Sword, Shield, Bow, Spear, Two-Handed, Cannon, Rapier and Shield, Gun, Special Weapons, Horse).

• All Combat Challenges: 10 battle challenges including watchtower and siege objectives.

• All Life Challenges: Cover fishing, cooking, gathering, trading, crafting, and pet collecting (30 pets for Natural Collector).

• All Minigame Challenges: Visit and complete each minigame location at least once.

• All Exploration Challenges: Open-world puzzles that do not require Sealed Abyss Artifacts.

• All Faction Quests: No quests are missable. Complete every faction questline including Reconstructing Pailune.

• 3 Legendary Horses: Tame Royler, Rokade, and Camora.

• 30 Pets: Adopt every available dog and cat across Pywel.

• Full Camp Upgrades: Complete all three Greymane Camp expansions and the Pailune reconstruction.

• All Liberations: Free every enemy-occupied location on the map.

• All NPC Trust Maxed: Reach maximum trust with every vendor to unlock all Trade Agreements.

Tips and Strategies

1. Collect Sealed Abyss Artifacts first. Since the game does not track progress retroactively, finding these artifacts before grinding other activities ensures everything counts toward your challenges.

2. Use your lantern. Holding up your lantern causes nearby Abyss items to emit white light, making them visible from a distance. This is invaluable for tracking down the last few hidden artifacts.

3. Complete the Dragon's Stone Chamber Puzzle early. This marks all 43 waterfall caves on your map, eliminating guesswork.

4. Stockpile armaments mid-game. Run armament-producing dispatch missions throughout the story so you are prepared for the third camp expansion.

5. Greet vendors daily. The +5 Trust per day from daily greetings adds up quickly. Make a habit of speaking to every merchant you pass.

6. Focus gear refinement on your primary weapon. Abyss Artifacts are scarce. Upgrade your main weapon to +5 or higher before spreading resources across secondary loadouts.

7. Batch-synthesize Abyss Gears. Save duplicate Abyss Gears and attempt Greater synthesis in bulk to take advantage of the 4% success rate over many attempts.

8. Tame Camora last. Use Royler for exploration and Rokade for tanking through the mid-game. Camora completes the trio for endgame mounted combat.