If you are looking for the hottest game right now, it is undeniably Pearl Abyss' 'Crimson Desert'. While it faced some grumbling about its storyline and controls near launch, the reception skyrocketed, smashing through 4 million units sold in just 12 days. It has become the talk of the town among gamers, largely thanks to its high-fidelity open world and the sheer volume of hidden secrets tucked away within. The result? 'Crimson Desert' has transcended mere inconvenience and reached what we might call 'The Mountain of Pure Joy'.

Even those who were initially cynical are now left slack-jawed by the constant stream of new features and bizarre details. The skeptics who once asked, 'Why on earth did they build it like this?' have shifted to 'Wait, how does this even work?' in genuine awe. Some are even calling it the first open world since 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild' that truly warrants this level of deep-diving. We have compiled a list of the 'how does this even work?' moments in 'Crimson Desert'—the kind that makes you wonder what the developers were on, or perhaps, what they forgot to take.

Usually, when you hit a ruins puzzle in an open-world game, your brain starts to ache. You are expected to hunt for tiny hints hidden by developers, rotate stones, align sequences, or combine specific materials just to clear a path. For someone like me who loathes unnecessary mental gymnastics, it is nothing short of torture. It is even more frustrating when the game forces you to follow the rules, or the door simply won't open. Watching a protagonist capable of dropping a dragon with a single punch struggle to cut a measly vine makes me scream, 'Just break it!'

'Crimson Desert' is different. Faced with a sophisticated puzzle requiring perfectly aligned pillars, one player simply climbed on top and stomped on the ground. To everyone's surprise, the physics-based pillar sank down bit by bit until it hit the required height, solving the puzzle. It turns out the 'rotating switches' designed by the devs were just for those lacking the raw power. In real life, if a lock is stuck, a sledgehammer is the fastest solution—and haven't we seen Kang Ho-dong smash locks on escape room shows? This game proves a simple truth: if you have the physical prowess, you do not need to bother your head.

Isn't causing absolute mayhem the true beauty of an open world? We all have memories of stressing out by terrorizing NPCs in GTA or role-playing a Cyberpsycho in 'Cyberpunk 2077'. But rampaging with just guns and blades is a bit stale, isn't it? Searching for a more creative, slightly twisted approach, 'Crimson Desert' provides the answer: bugs. You can collect cockroaches, bees, and spiders as items, but instead of just hoarding them in your inventory, you can 'release' them into the wild.

Try dumping dozens—or hundreds—of insects into a cramped space like a tavern. It turns into an absolute circus. The sight of NPCs screaming and fleeing from the swarm, followed by guards rushing in to handle the chaos, is pure pandemonium. Why on earth did the developers code such detailed movement algorithms for insects and specific disgust reactions for NPCs? Thanks to them, we can easily live out our dreams as amateur biological terrorists in 'Crimson Desert'.

The current trend for open worlds is meaningful interaction. Beyond simple physical collisions, players crave deep systems where energy and elements are absorbed or transferred. Sadly, few games deliver. I assumed 'Crimson Desert' wouldn't reach that level, but boy, was I wrong. The energy interactions here go beyond just looking pretty. In this game, you can reflect light with your blade to ignite objects from a distance.

I could accept that much. But if you lay out fish and meat and reflect sunlight onto them with your sword, you end up with a perfectly seared steak. The principle of using a magnifying glass to burn paper is fully realized here. You don't need a campfire or a stove; just a well-polished blade and some sunshine are enough for an outdoor BBQ party. The devs are so obsessed with cooking that they even left traces of a buff system tied to food quality. At this point, if they showed up on 'Culinary Class Wars' season 3 wearing a 'Crimson Desert Fox' badge, they would breeze through the auditions with their light-seared steaks.

Boss characters, arriving with epic soundtracks, are the highlight of any game. Seeing them zip around like lightning to pressure the player is undeniably cool. Unless they are meant to be a gag character, you rarely see anything ridiculous in these fights. However, the physics engine in 'Crimson Desert' shows no mercy. No matter how cool the boss is, everyone is equal before the laws of physics.

Take Ludwik, a boss who transforms into lightning for a flashy charge—seeing him trip over a tiny wooden box, lose his footing, and face-plant is a spectacle only possible in 'Crimson Desert'. In a movie, this would be a blooper where the lead actor trips over the threshold; in a comic, it would turn into a slapstick comedy. In any other game, the box would have shattered, or the boss would have phased through it, but this world is so brutally realistic that the boss genuinely stumbles. It is hard to dismiss it as a bug when the timing of the box breaking and the boss's momentum align so perfectly it gives you goosebumps.

'Crimson Desert' is a fantasy open-world game. Naturally, the stage is the ground, and while you might reach a sky city, anything above that is usually just background. However, a user who used an infinite stamina mod climbed higher than the game intended, only to discover something shocking. Beyond 100km altitude, actual outer space awaits. This isn't just a skybox painted with textures; you can see the Earth as a real sphere beneath you and the Milky Way flowing above.

This isn't 'Starfield' or 'No Man's Sky', so I don't know why a game about horse riding and sword fighting needs outer space and a spherical planet visible over the horizon. Even if some space simulation is needed for real-time night sky rendering, packing the entire cosmos into the game feels like the obsession of a particular developer. It is the pinnacle of detail. They obsessed over every ant and ripple on the ground, then decided to build the entire universe just because they could. I salute the sheer madness of 'Crimson Desert'.