Crimson Desert Players Are Still Doing One Major Thing Wrong After Hundreds of Hours

Many Crimson Desert players are discovering that they’re not fully completing Sanctums correctly, even after hundreds of hours of playtime. Some feel as though Crimson Desert doesn’t fully explain how players are supposed to finish the Sanctums and claim their rewards, leading to them missing out on important rewards throughout their playthrough.

After solving the puzzle of each Crimson Desert Sanctum, players are supposed to use Blinding Flash to shine a light onto the Sanctum’s ancient device, before completing a short mini-game. This will reward players with a Core for that respective Sanctum, which players can then seal into their Kuku Pot by using Axiom Force. This is very important for obtaining certain Kuku Blueprints, which are a significant part of Crimson Desert’s crafting. However, the game’s lack of a tutorial for this feature has led to some confusion in the community.

Many Crimson Desert Players Aren’t Completing Sanctums Correctly

Redditor Outside_Frosting7559 raised the issue, pointing out that they were never made aware of how to fully finish Crimson Desert Sanctums, assuming that they had already received all the rewards for finishing them. Because they hadn’t been completing them, they voiced their frustration at the fact that they “missed out on a really important loot for crafting,” referring to the missed Kuku Blueprints in Crimson Desert.

This particular gamer had 200 hours of gameplay, showing how even experienced Crimson Desert players could easily fall victim to this problem. The sentiment in the entire thread was the exact same, with one user saying, “you and basically everyone else.” One newer player claimed to have cleansed their first Sanctum, and said they “have no idea what you’re talking about,” because “it’s never mentioned.” In fact, there were very few players in the thread who were aware that they were supposed to do anything after speaking to the Witches in each Sanctum, indicating that this is a widespread issue that Crimson Desert fans are facing.

The lack of tutorials in many areas has been a very common Crimson Desert criticism since its release. There are positives and negatives to this approach. It’s great that players can make helpful Crimson Desert discoveries, even after playing the game for a long time. It adds to the replayability and creates the idea that there’s always something new to find. However, on the other side of the coin, players missing out on core mechanics because the game simply doesn’t tell them about them is far from ideal and should probably be addressed. While Crimson Desert is a break from the much-criticized hand-holding game design philosophies of some modern RPGs, it’s clear that a happy medium could be a big help for many players.

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It remains to be seen whether Pearl Abyss will do anything to make it clearer how players are supposed to finish Sanctums in Crimson Desert. The good news is that the developer has been very quick to address player feedback, and it has already released several massive Crimson Desert updates that have resolved some of the criticisms given so far.