Pearl Abyss has been patching Crimson Desert at what one Forbes writer described as a borderline hilarious pace and this newest patch includes one of the most requested features, player housing. Additionally, Kliff, the gunslinger archetype most players gravitate toward, can now actually use guns. He can use muskets and shotguns. The party-wide, aerial movement ability that Kliff has been hoarding is now shared with Damiana and Oongka. Wyvern pets will also be available. Pond Fishing is also now available (cramming the tool slot into the secondary weapon wheel).
It is the kind of patch that makes you sit back and reconsider what kind of game Pearl Abyss is actually building. The launch version of Crimson Desert was an impressive but rough open-world action RPG with a playable story and a combat system that had a lot of unfinished mechanics. Six months later, most of the rough edges have been sanded down. The game currently is not what we reviewed at launch.
Even if you read our original Crimson Desert review and walked away with a clear verdict, it is worth talking about. Patches change games. The upcoming live-service title we will have in 2026 will be Crimson Desert. With each Friday Patch Drop, Pearl Abyss is proving that assumption right.
The Patch That Finally Gave Kliff Guns
This new addition is quite literal and long overdue. Kliff can now equip and use muskets and shotguns to be on the same level as Damiane and Oongka who have had guns since launch. This was the most requested character improvement, and Pearl Abyss has finally delivered.
If you main Kliff, the mechanical impact is huge. Up until this patch, Kliff’s ranged options consisted of bows, throwables, and some gear set specific magical projectiles which made it hard to close the distance on heavily armored opponents. At medium range, crowd control was highly inconsistent. In boss fights, if the game punished you for being melee aggressive, it forced you into a defensive playstyle which did not align with the vision Pearl Abyss had for the character.
Muskets and shotguns now remove the long-range and crowd control gaps respectively. Instead of being a melee-focused character with some situational ranged options, Kliff is now a true hybrid who can be selective about his engagement distance. This has certainly been the most requested change in the community, and the wait has been worth it.
Importance of Muskets and Shotguns for Kliff
In addition to the immediate qol improvement, the Kliff gun patch shows what Pearl Abyss thinks of character identity in Crimson Desert. The studio is clearly dedicated to giving each playable character individuality without locking them out of meaningful build options. The character classes were never designed to be rigid archetypes. They were starting points.
This patch confirms that vision. By giving Kliff access to gun mechanics now available to other characters, Pearl Abyss shows that the playable cast is converging towards a shared mechanical baseline with only cosmetic and narrative differences. That's the right direction for a game where players want to dedicate themselves to a single character without feeling a whole system missing.
It also enables build diversity that was previously impossible. A musket-and-greatsword Kliff plays nothing like a bow-and-greatsword Kliff. The shotgun provides a panic button for surrounded fights that bow users simply do not have. Players who shelved Kliff after Early Game now have a reason to come back.
Baby Wyverns: Pets and Potential Flying Mounts
A new addition to the game is Baby Wyverns, which can currently be obtained as pets and will eventually become flying mounts, just like the currently available dragon mounts. This is significant for two reasons.
For one, the instant reward pet system has value on its own. The pet system in Crimson Desert has been underrated, sitting between cosmetic and gameplay value. Adding wyverns to the system gives players who found the other pet options boring to interact with that system.
Secondly, Pearl Abyss is now more transparent than ever with their long-term content roadmap with this update. Not many devs like to do this, as in the past, they would drop patches with little to no communication beforehand. By stating that the wyvern pet will turn into a mount one day creates a lot of expectations, which is the opposite of their live service approach of 'wait and see'.
If you haven’t invested in pet content yet, the wyvern path is now the clear choice. By capturing or hatching one of the new Baby Wyverns, you’re pre-ordering a flying mount.
Fishing and Camp Building In Crimson Desert Just Got Real!
Crimson Desert has had camp building since it launched, but it has not had the features that early demo footage suggested. This patch starts to address that gap by adding the ability to build ponds at Howling Hill Camp and Pailune Camp. The ponds allow fishing at your camp and will allow you to capture, breed, release, and catch Legendary Fish that previously required you to travel to specific zones to catch.
If you caught and disposed of Legendary Fish prior to this patch, Pearl Abyss has the fish back in your inventory. Oddly enough, it is a retroactive courtesy, and the fact that the studio seems to have noted the player frustration regarding progression resets with this example is nice.
Lastly, your engagement with the camp building loop is now rewarded. Building a pond and using it to breed fish and serve the cooked fish to quests creates a loop with nice self-contained progression. Players that enjoy the survival and basebuilding systems in open world games have finally been given a reason to invest time into this patch, and it will be well worth it.
The Separate Tool Slot: Small Change, Big Quality of Life
One important change that went under the radar is that tools now have a separate slot. This means that you will no longer have to scroll past your fishing rod, bug net, and pickaxe to equip them, and can instead get straight to your combat loadouts.
While this may seem insignificant, removing the tools from the same slot as a secondary weapon will remove a lot of annoying moments within Crimson Desert. Whether it be accidentally reeling in an enemy during battle or pulling out the wrong weapon to use instead of a fishing rod, the frustration is real. While it feels like this should have been added at launch, it is nice to see Pearl Abyss addressing the issue after so long.
It also shows that the studio is reacting to some of the feedback, particularly in regards to the UI. The Combat UX in Crimson Desert has been criticized a lot, possibly as an afterthought to the story or boss design, but it is far more important for the overall daily play experience. This patch shows Pearl Abyss is taking it seriously.
Damiana and Oongka Catch Up: Aerial Roll Parity
Damiana and Oongka can now both perform Focused Aerial Rolls like Kliff, and Damiana also gets an improved strike effect on two-handed cannons and better unarmed chain attack hits after a dodge.
While these changes might be seen as minor balance tweaks, they tell a bigger story similar to the Kliff gun patch. Pearl Abyss is trying to eliminate the mechanical gaps between characters which means that players will have the ability to create build identity through gear and personal choice rather than lacking character lockouts. The Aerial Roll movement ability has made players feel like Kliff was far more mobile compared to other characters, and therefore, removing this ability from him makes way for more flexibility in playstyle for people using other characters.
The Damiana buffs are a lot more subtile, but most players who actually make use of her in active combat slots will notice a difference here. Two-handed cannons have always been a good idea, but the inconsistent strike effects have made them frustrating. This patch should help. Unarmed combat after dodging has always been a rather niche combat strategy, but now it will feel more viable like an actual strategy rather than a last-ditch effort.
The Smaller Wins: 20 Animals, Cooking Categories, Painting Missions
The patch is more than just headline additions. The improvements list runs long and most entries qualify as quality of life work that shows the studio is noticing hundreds of minor user annoyances at the same time.
World density has improved with the addition of twenty new species of small animals. Cooking has been improved by having fish, meat, and vegetable variants for the griddle and pan dishes, which help intuitively plan meals, and reward players who specialize in certain types. New endgame collection content has been added with the Mass Craft Paintings and Craft Fine Paintings missions for players who have completed the main story arcs.
Other tweaks include the ability to refine equipment instantly without reselection of materials, improvements to prize visibility at claw machines, the ability to stack rough tree branches obtained from logging, functionality of the Infinite Arrows Abyss gear for bullets and cannonballs, transportable cats, enhanced sitting chair animations, mouse hovering previews at the Barber, reblockading at bandit camps and ruins, improvements to the Disconnected Truth puzzle, the ability for fish traps to actually catch fish, improvements to outfit quality, and refreshed 2D visual assets aligned to art direction.
While these changes may seem small, they signify that Pearl Abyss is prioritizing the resolution of player frustrations, something most open-world studios typically do for large content updates, over the last two months the game we are experiencing is very different from the one we reviewed at launch.
What Does This Patch Mean For Pearl Abyss's Live-Service Discipline
Like its peers in the live-service, open-world genre, Crimson Desert has a pattern of rapid, frequent updates for an even pacing of post-launch content. Most other open worlds patches range within months, while Crimson Desert has patched less than 6 months post-launch. Not only does Crimson Desert demonstrate monthly updates, but they consistently include major content updates alongside community-identified small UX changes and future features based on their own initiatives.
The Kliff gun patch demonstrates Crimson Desert's commitment to its second post-launch phase. In early window access, there was a pattern of substantive updates. This post-launch pattern differentiates a studio that views pre-launch shipping as the target to one that sees this as the beginning of a longer process.
This is significant for the original review of Crimson Desert. The combat improved post-launch. The critique on unevenness and depth was addressed in the patches. As systems increased in complexity and control added flexibility, the overall play experience was enhanced to extended sessions. The recommendation also grew to more confident.
If you left Crimson Desert at launch because the rough edges were too rough, the current version is meaningfully different. Pearl Abyss is doing the work that most studios promise then stop doing, six weeks after launch. The Kliff gun patch is the most recent evidence, and the next Friday patch is likely already in QA.
Sometimes the best review of a game is the one you write again in six months.
Patch detail coverage based on Forbes writer Paul Tassi's May 22 2026 reporting, cross-referenced with Pearl Abyss official patch notes and community feedback channels.