Highly Anticipated ‘Crimson Desert’ Won’t Have Microtransactions

Crimson Desert, the highly anticipated new fantasy action-RPG from publisher and developer Pearl Abyss, is confirmed to have no in-game purchases.

The announcement came via the Dropped Frames podcast. Will Powers, the PR and marketing director at Pearl Abyss, told the podcast hosts:

“This is made to be a premium experience that you buy and enjoy the world, and not something for microtransactions… It’s a monetization model: if you do free-to-play, you need to make up the revenue in another way. This is a premium experience. That is the transaction. Like, full stop.”

In a world with so many microtransactions, DLC and games with pay-to-play models, this is very refreshing to hear.

There is some worry, however, due to the fact that Black Desert Online, Crimson Desert‘s predecessor, leaned into microtransactions slightly.

It is also worth noting that right before the quoted section, Powers explained, “I don’t want to say that there’s zero [microtransactions] because there are pre-order bonuses that we have, but anything that’s announced and coming at launch is strictly cosmetic. Those are just the pre-order bonuses… There is not a cosmetic cash shop.”

He also doubled down on X by writing, “There are preorder bonuses. I said, at launch no mtx.”

As such, fans can obtain the Khaled Shield by pre-ordering the game, and there will also be Deluxe and Collector’s Editions that will come with their own specific cosmetic perks.

The “at launch” leaves the door open to some doubt, but it still seems there won’t be many monetary surprises, if any.

Approximately six years after its initial announcement at the 2020 Game Awards, Crimson Desert will finally launch to the public on March 19.