Patch 1.04.00

Patch 1.04.00 is a major Crimson Desert content update released by Pearl Abyss on April 23, 2026 (revised). The patch is the largest post-launch update to date, weighing in around 40 GB on each platform, with most of that download going toward improved long-distance rendering and texture quality. It is available on Steam (PC and Mac), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox on PC, and the Epic Games Store; the Mac App Store version was still in submission at the time of release.

The update adds three selectable difficulty settings, a suite of new specialized storage containers, birds as a new pet category, fresh skills for all three playable characters, expanded housing options at the Greymane Camp, and a long list of balance, UI, graphics, and accessibility changes. Pearl Abyss also confirmed that Boss Rematches are still in development and will arrive in a later update rather than as part of Patch 1.04.00.

Difficulty Settings

The settings menu now contains a difficulty selector with three options. The choice can be changed from the settings screen at any time and affects combat values, parry/dodge timing, and the behavior of bosses across the campaign. Normal matches the existing pre-patch experience, so players who do not touch the setting see no change.

Easy: reduced player damage taken; reduced enemy max HP, aggressiveness, and overall speed; extended Parry / Dodge timing windows; reduced boss counterattack and escape frequency when hit. Intended as a lighter pass through the campaign and boss fights.
Normal: unchanged from the pre-patch baseline. Leaves the game in its previously shipped state.
Hard: food effects are delayed until the consumption animation completes; increased player damage taken; increased enemy max HP, aggressiveness, and speed; reduced Parry / Dodge timing windows; reduced Roll invincibility duration; increased boss counterattack and escape frequency; additional combat patterns for certain bosses. Designed for experienced players looking for tighter timing and more aggressive enemies.

Storage and Housing

Patch 1.04.00 adds four new placeable storage containers and a Wardrobe for cosmetic outfits, plus a Select House option that swaps between four house layouts depending on the camp expansion level.

Sturdy Gatherables Chest 1,000 slots, purchased from Furniture Shops. Materials inside can be used for crafting and refinement without being carried in the backpack.
Kuku Cooler 40 slots, awarded by a new quest. Holds food and ingredients; stored ingredients can be used for cooking on the spot.
Enhanced Kuku Cooler 330 slots, craftable upgrade with the same cook-from-storage behavior.
Collectibles Chest 1,000 slots, awarded by a new quest. Dedicated to quest items and crafting recipes.
Wardrobe 100 slots per unit, max 1,000 across 10 wardrobes. Adds an outfit-storage feature so cosmetic gear can be moved out of the main inventory.

The four house layouts are Compact House (smallest), Standard House (mid-size), Spacious House (largest before camp relocation), and Spacious Pailunese House (unique layout unlocked after the camp moves to Pailune). The Housing mode UI was polished throughout, placement feedback is clearer, and a new mass-retrieval action pulls every furniture item placed through Housing mode in a single action.

Greymane Camp

All goods sold by Greymane Camp NPCs are now offered at a 10% discount to camp members.
After the camp moves to Pailune, players receive a Private Storage furniture item that can be placed through Housing mode in the new residence.
A new well has been added to Howling Hill, giving the camp a permanent source of water for cooking and gathering.
New ore nodes and wells were placed across Pywel, making resource gathering less of a detour.

Pets

Birds join cats and dogs as a fully supported Pets category. Existing pet behavior was cleaned up, and every tamed companion can now wear an accessory that influences its behavior.

Sotdae of Bond a new inventory item awarded by a quest. Foods that birds prefer can be placed in it; feeding from the Sotdae of Bond increases trust with nearby birds until they are willing to be tamed.
Five new cat types additional cat variants can be encountered and tamed across Pywel.
Abyss Heuklang the Abyss Heuklang has been added to the regular pet roster and can now be tamed and registered like any other companion. Several can be found wandering the lush, greenery-covered starting Abyss areas in addition to the launch spawn near the Axiom Archive. See Abyss Heuklang for the full taming process.
Sigil of Bonding a new accessory. Equipping it on a cat keeps the cat on the player's shoulder for a much longer stretch, restoring the older shoulder behavior; shoulder-riding is now opt-in via this accessory rather than the default.
Pet renaming was added; horses and pets can both be given custom names from the pet menu.
A new secret shop in Pororin sells pet equipment.

Skills: Kliff

Weapon Throw a new skill usable while dual-wielding. Uses the same controls as Shield Bash; press the input to throw the weapon and press it again or walk up to the weapon to retrieve it.
Force Palm improved attack speed.
Force Palm Pulse now charges through three stages, with damage increasing at each stage.
Force Current fixed an issue where Kliff would fall off ledges while using it.
Fixed parry not triggering after guarding with a non-sword primary weapon.
Fixed Charge being unusable with certain weapons.

Skills: Damiane and Oongka

Ambush both characters can now learn Ambush, expanding their stealth toolkit and giving them a workable opening teleport-strike.
Both characters also learn a skill with the same effect as Kliff's Focused Force Palm, which lets them solve Axiom Force wall puzzles previously gated behind Kliff.
Quick Reload (Damiane), can now be acquired by spending an Abyss Artifact, in addition to skill observation. This matters because observation became inaccessible after Chapter 11.
Vertical Flight (Oongka), fixed horizontal movement during flight; the blaster can also be fired during flight for the first time.
Scatter Shot (Oongka), fixed an exploit allowing it to be used without bullets while in Back Hang.

Combat and Boss Balance

Bosses are no longer immune to player attacks while performing their own powerful attacks.
Counterattack and escape frequency during consecutive hits has been adjusted, and certain bosses received specific attack-pattern tweaks.
Hard difficulty adds new combat patterns for certain bosses on top of the boss tweaks above.
Boss rematches are still in development and were not included in 1.04.00.
Elemental status ailment damage was increased.
Pillar and tree collision damage was reduced slightly.
Examine speed was improved; puzzle object push and rotation speed was improved; follow-up attacks connect faster when blocked; unarmed combat chaining after Dodge was improved; spear and longsword attack flow was improved.
Equipment reinforcement gains from Grindstones and anvils were reduced.

New Weapons, Armor, and Tools

Sword of Starlight a new one-handed sword exclusive to Damiane, awarded from a new quest.
Tree Branch a new Kliff one-handed weapon obtained by chopping down ordinary trees.
Sturdy Tree Branch a higher-grade Tree Branch variant obtained by chopping bamboo.
Sturdy Broom a new tool, a step up from the standard Broom.
Baltheon armor outfit a previously inaccessible armor set is now equippable on Kliff.
Baltheon Plate Helm the helm previously known as Rekhia Plate Helm has been renamed and tuned so Kliff can equip it.
13 new tattoos added to the character creator and tattoo customization options.

World Additions

Constabularies were added to Southern Hernand and to eastern, western, and southern Demeniss, providing additional law-enforcement points in those regions.
Livestock vendors were placed across Pywel, selling cows, pigs, goats, sheep, ducks, and chickens for the Greymane Camp farm.
Tumbleweeds were added to the desert regions for visual atmosphere.
Additional outfits were added to several shops, including the Back Alley Shop.
Kuku Flame-Resistant Armor and Kuku Ice-Resistant Armor are now dyeable through the standard dye system.

Controls

Selectable keyboard/mouse and controller presets, including a Classic Preset that restores the launch-day binds.
Evasion Control option (double-click vs. hold) and a Switch Roll and Evasion Input toggle.
Using Skill: Element option binds elemental selection to a Quick Slot.
Interaction inputs register immediately on key press when no other action conflicts; held interactions execute continuously.
Dismount/Drop and Cancel were merged into a single shared input.
Lantern toggle is available while aiming; drawing a weapon while aiming switches to aim mode rather than guard.
Vault now requires Jump only during a different attack input.
Map opens via DualSense touchpad hold on PlayStation or View button hold on Xbox.
Escape key matches Evade key on Keyboard/Mouse.

UI and Inventory

Inventory now uses five category tabs (All, Documents, Equipment, Food, Materials, Others) and remembers the chosen sort order across restarts.
New Lock function prevents items from being sold or discarded.
Show Group Icon toggle in Settings > Play; Ungroup and Ungroup All Items split into separate options.
Shop UI shows the player's existing count for the item being purchased.
World map gained a Filters / Search function and custom marker shape and color selection.
Wells, Memory Fragment obtained markers, and shop stock status for max-trust shops are now drawn on the map; lanterns no longer broadcast detection signals after their fragment has been collected.
Minimap displays north / south / east / west cardinal directions.
Skills menu layout was adjusted across Kliff, Damiane, and Oongka.
Faction Quests / Challenges show available quest count; Journal shows reward item info; shop buy menu shows purchase condition requirements.

Graphics and Accessibility

Distant object and texture rendering quality improved; character visual quality at long distance improved; hair lighting in shaded areas reworked.
Displacement mapping errors and flickering fixed.
Subtitle font 'Max' size option added; camera distance is preserved when adjusting the visual range slider.
Colorblind Mode, Chromatic Aberration option, and Photosensitive Mode added to the accessibility settings.
PC: AMD FSR Ray Regeneration quality improved; Intel XeSS 3.0 upscaling and Frame Generation improved.
Mac: stuttering reduced; MetalFX Denoising Upscaler available on macOS Tahoe and later; display switching fixed; resolution at launch fixed; HDR quality improved and enabled by default on compatible displays; dark screen on disabling HDR fixed.

Mounts and Movement

Cloudcart calling fixed; now a permanent summonable mount; the crafting mission is now one-time only.
Marni's Mechahorse sprinting and swimming actions now work while mounted.
Blackstar teleport invincibility / immobility fixed; long-distance summon fixed.
Horse cargo display no longer overlaps shields.

Quests, Missions, and Bounties

Cloudcart crafting mission is now one-time completion only.
Mission Dispatch menu separates Dispatch and Repeat Mission into different buttons.
Quest tracking trigger fixed for follow-up quests; Journal now indicates when a quest target is dispatched on a mission.
Cumulative-quest progress display improved.
High-bounty arrest state added; bounty target locations now display correctly; killing a bounty target after capture no longer fails the mission; Comrades stopped attacking bounty targets.
Knowledge acquisition fixed for Tristan, Flame Knight, Marni's Machina Knight, and Dreadnought.

Stability and Localization

Corrupted save data notice added to the Load menu.
HDR crash on incompatible monitors fixed.
Multiple stability and crash fixes across PC, console, and Mac.
Steam Input Xbox controller rotation actions fixed.
Various localization errors fixed across all languages and overall localization quality improved.

Platform Availability

Patch 1.04.00 is available on Steam (PC and Mac), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox on PC, and the Epic Games Store. The Mac App Store version of the patch was still being submitted at the time of the April 23, 2026 release; players on the App Store should check for the update separately.

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