Overview
Crimson Desert's open world is massive, but rushing into exploration too early can leave you underpowered and without essential traversal tools. This guide covers the recommended story progression milestones before you start exploring freely, and what to prioritize along the way.
Key Milestones Before Exploring
Milestone | Chapter | What It Unlocks |
|---|---|---|
First Abyss Visit | Chapter 1 | Fast travel points, glider, Axiom Force, Force Palm |
Chapter 3 | Camp base, dispatch missions, cooking, crafting hub | |
Chapter 5 | Abyss core system, synthesis, socketing, elemental skills | |
Full map access | Chapter 7-8 |
The Short Answer: Chapter 5
Most players should focus on mainlining the story through Chapter 5 before doing heavy exploration. At that point you will have:
Fast Travel points across the starting region
The glider for safe falls and long-distance travel
Axiom Force and Force Palm for puzzles and combat
Access to the Witch for abyss core management
Enough skill points to unlock key traversal skills like Aerial Maneuver and Swift Flight
The Greymane Camp as a home base with cooking, crafting, and dispatch missions
What to Do During the Story
While progressing through chapters 1 through 5, you should still do some light exploration:
Grab sealed abyss artifacts at road intersections and altars. Use Blinding Flash to spot them from high ground.
Clear nearby abyss cressets for fast travel points and skill points.
Do side quests in Hernand for inventory slot upgrades (3 per quest) and contribution points.
Hunt animals and mine ore whenever you pass them for crafting materials.
Complete bounties at the jail for money and contribution.
After Chapter 5
Once you have the witch unlocked and a solid set of traversal skills, you are ready to explore more freely. However, some areas remain gated:
Demeniss opens fully around Chapters 7 through 8.
Pailune opens in Chapter 7 with the Homecoming story arc.
The Abyss branches expand as you complete more spire and sanctum quests.
Avoiding Open-World Burnout
The single most common reason players quit Crimson Desert partway through is what the community calls the completionist wall. This happens when you spend 40 to 70 hours inside the starting region, clearing every icon on the map, emptying every faction quest board, and discovering every tower and cave, until the region runs out of new things to show you. At that point the game starts to feel repetitive, and many players set the save aside and never come back.
The Burnout Loop
The loop usually plays out like this. A new player arrives in Hernand and gets hooked on the variety of side content. They decide they want to see everything the region has to offer before moving on. Sixty hours later they have done exactly that, the journal is stuffed with completed entries, and the rewards for each new icon no longer feel exciting. When they finally consider leaving for the next region, the prospect of starting over with another map full of empty icons feels exhausting rather than exciting, so they stop playing entirely.
The Solution: Push Out Earlier
The fix is to deliberately leave Hernand before you have finished everything there, and let a different environment reset your sense of discovery. You do not have to rush to the hardest zone in the game. Any change of scenery is enough to pull you out of the burnout loop. Do not worry about the quests you are leaving behind: Hernand will still be there when you come back with higher gear, and the completionist checklist will be easier to polish off as a side activity rather than as the main event.
Where to Go Next
Recommended early detour destinations include Demeniss, Delesyia, the Crimson Desert region itself, and Pailune. You do not need to commit to exploring all of a new region. Even dropping into one of these zones for a few hours is enough to restart your sense of novelty. Good ways to pick your next destination include:
Follow a coastline out of Hernand and see where it takes you. Coastlines pass through a wide variety of biomes and chain naturally into shipping routes, pirate encounters, and coastal settlements.
Chase a clue from a book. Many of the readable books in the game name specific landmarks and treasure sites outside Hernand. Pick one that catches your eye and head directly to it without clearing anything in between.
Pick the farthest biome from Hernand that looks visually different and go there. The change of scenery alone is often enough to reset your motivation.
The Skyrim Mindset
A useful way to reframe the exploration pacing is to treat Crimson Desert like your first ever Skyrim playthrough. In that kind of playthrough you did not grind down a journal list of objectives. You picked a direction, walked until something interesting happened, and followed whatever that interesting thing led to. The game rewards that same style of play. The faction quests and challenges you accumulate along the way will pile up, and that is fine. You can return to them later with better gear and a refreshed attitude, instead of forcing yourself to complete them in a single exhausting pass.
Tips
Use the Abyss fast travel layer (press R3/right stick on the map) to reach distant locations by flying down from above.
Waterfall caves contain some of the best early gear. See How to Enter Waterfalls for the technique.
Do not spend abyss artifacts on level 5+ refinements early. Save them for skill unlocks.
The Contribution System vendor in Hernand Castle sells solid early armor that can be sold back for a full refund later.