Crimson Desert Beginner's Guide: 15 Things to Do in Your First 10 Hours
Crimson Desert doesn't hold your hand. You wake up as Kliff, a mercenary with a bloody past, and the continent of Pywel drops you straight into its deep end. Enemies hit hard. The map stays fogged until you earn every inch of it. And half the mechanics â Force Palm mid-air jumps, robbing banks, learning enemy skills by watching them â the game never mentions.
This guide covers what you actually need to know. No filler, no lore dumps. Just the stuff that keeps you alive and moving.
Combat basics you'll use the whole game
Hold the attack buttons, don't mash them
The biggest early mistake: tapping R1/R2 like it's a button-masher. Hold the button instead. Kliff chains attacks on his own, and you can switch between light and heavy mid-combo by moving from one button to the other. You can also cancel an attack animation into a skill at any point â but you can't dodge or block mid-swing, so don't get greedy.
Force Palm does everything
Force Palm (click R3) is the most overloaded move in the game. It stuns enemies. It disrupts incoming attacks and lowers enemy defense. It heals your horse. You can use it in mid-air up to three times for a triple jump â great for scaling cliffs without burning stamina. It breaks suspicious walls and floors that hide secrets. It even mines ore veins when you're hanging from a wall and don't have a pickaxe.
Get comfortable with it early. You'll use it constantly.
Watch enemies to learn their skills
When you fight something new and it glows blue, Kliff is "watching and learning." If the enemy uses the move enough times while glowing, you unlock that skill permanently â no skill points spent. It's one of the most satisfying systems in the game and it rewards patience over button-mashing.
What to upgrade first
Health and stamina, in that order
Your first 6 to 8 Abyss Artifacts (this is what the game calls skill points) should go into Health and Stamina. Get both to level 4 or 5 before touching anything else.
Health is obvious â more hits you can take. Stamina matters for everything: dodging, sprinting, gliding, climbing, swimming, and how many attacks you can chain. At level 8 stamina, the game opens up. Before that, you'll feel winded constantly.
Don't invest heavily in Spirit early. It's useful later, but health and stamina solve more problems in the first 10 hours.
Best early skills
After your stats are stable, grab these:
- Blinding Flash Finisher: hold L1+R1, then hold R2. Kliff slows time and unleashes a wave of slashes with a shockwave finisher. Works on single targets, crowds, and hunting. One of the best early investments.
- Armed Combat Level 2: unlocks Evasive Slash, which opens up the Spear's Counter Stance â one of the strongest defensive tools you'll get.
- Keen Senses: a passive that gives an audio cue for incoming attacks. Cheap and useful on every fight.
- Nature's Snare: slows bosses and enemies with projectile attacks. Makes several early boss fights much more manageable.
How to unfog the map and travel fast
Ring the bell towers
Every major town has a bell tower with a bell icon on the map. Climb it and ring the bell. It clears the fog across the entire region â roads, vendors, points of interest, everything. There are 8 towers in total. The first one is in Hernand Town, between the jail and the inn.
Question marks are fast travel points
When you see a large "?" on the map, go there. These hide one of two things:
- Abyss Nexuses: step on the glowing platform and it becomes a fast travel point.
- Abyss Cressets: solve a short puzzle to activate another fast travel point.
Unlock these early. You'll come back to regions constantly, and walking gets old fast.
Use the Abyss map to "cheat" travel
Open the map and switch to the Abyss layer. Teleport to any Abyss island floating high above the continent, then skydive down to wherever you want to go. It's often the fastest way to cross large distances, and it lets you reach areas you haven't unlocked on foot yet.
Blinding Flash spots secrets
Hold L1+R1 from a high vantage point and look around. Golden and silver glints in the distance mark fast travel points, Sealed Abyss Artifacts, and other hidden stuff. Do this from every bell tower after ringing it.
Gear, money, and not being broke
Refine your starting weapon
Find the blacksmith in Hernand and do their intro quest ("Turnali's Request"). After that, you can refine gear. Your starting Sword of the Wolf is worth upgrading â it carries you through the early chapters. A vendor at Cairn House (north of Hernand Castle) sells Iron and Copper ore cheap.
Use Grindstones near blacksmiths and campsites before tough fights. They give a temporary attack boost that makes a real difference.
Contribution Points give you free gear
Do side quests and help NPCs to earn Contribution (the game's reputation system). Spend those points at Contribution Shops for solid early gear. When you're done with the gear, sell it back and you get the Contribution refunded.
Rob the Hernand bank early
Buy a mask from the Back Alley Merchant south of the Hernand church (or loot one from Bleed Bandits). Then go to the northwest building in Hernand and loot the storage room on the second floor. It's one of the easiest early paydays. Just don't get caught â getting jailed drains your Contribution and silver, and if you can't pay the fines, you go into debt.
If you do get a bounty, use a Writ of Absolution from any church to clear it on your terms.
Survival tips the game won't tell you
Always carry cooked food
Healing in Crimson Desert comes from food, and you can eat through almost any animation â even while a boss is throwing you across the arena. Always carry 10 to 15 cooked meals before a big fight. Cook raw meat at any campfire or cooking pot. Meat Skewers and Braised Meat (meat + any fruit or vegetable) are all you need early on. Elaborate recipes waste ingredients for minimal extra benefit.
Palmar Pills are your boss-fight insurance
These let you revive mid-fight at 30% HP instead of restarting from the beginning. Bosses don't pause during the revive animation, so create some distance first. Carry at least two before any major boss.
Get a pet for auto-loot
Find an animal â a dog, a fox, anything â and pet or feed it every day (5 times max per day). When its Trust hits 100, you can recruit it. Pets follow you and automatically loot corpses. It saves a surprising amount of time.
Check your camp storage chest
By Chapter 3 you build a camp at Howling Hill. The storage chest there auto-collects loot you missed in battle. Check it periodically â you'll find stuff you didn't realize you'd left behind.
Slide on water and catapult off trees
- Vaporwalker boots let you slide across water surfaces. Use them to cross rivers without swimming.
- Grapple a treetop with Axiom Force, pull back, and launch yourself skyward. Combine with mid-air Force Palm jumps and gliding for absurd traversal combos.
If a boss feels impossible, leave
Some early bosses are meant to be fought later. If you're getting stomped, walk away. Upgrade your gear, grab a few more skills, cook more food, and come back. The game won't punish you for it.
Quick reference
| What to do | Where / how |
|---|---|
| Upgrade Health & Stamina to 4-5 | Spend Abyss Artifacts in the skill menu |
| Ring bell towers | Climb towers in each major town (8 total) |
| Unlock fast travel | Find "?" icons on the map |
| Get the Force Palm triple jump | Tap Force Palm 3Ã in mid-air |
| Refine your sword | Blacksmith in Hernand after "Turnali's Request" |
| Rob the bank | Mask + northwest Hernand building, second floor |
| Recruit a pet | Feed/pet an animal until 100 Trust |
| Cook food constantly | Campfire or cooking pot: meat + fruit/vegetable |
| Clear bounties safely | Writ of Absolution at any church |
Crimson Desert is huge, and its best moments come from the things you stumble into â a waterfall cave behind stacked rocks, a legendary horse you spot from a bell tower, a boss you beat by pulling it off a ledge with Axiom Force. The tips above get you through the rough start. After that, Pywel is yours to break.