Crimson Desert Is My New Favorite Zelda Game

We may not be treated to a new Legend of Zelda game in 2026, but I feel like I already have been with Crimson Desert. From the moment I set foot in Pywel, nay, from the moment I saw Kliff use Axiom Force in the game’s pre-launch marketing rollout, I was comparing this game to Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, specifically. However, the more I’ve played it (and that means over 130 hours now), the more I’ve seen how closely it resembles The Legend of Zelda, one of my all-time favorite franchises, in numerous ways. As a result, I think I’d actually be okay if we didn’t end up getting a new Zelda game in 2026.

I know Crimson Desert isn’t actually a Zelda game, and it’s a bit tongue-in-cheek of me to say that it’s my new favorite Zelda game—because it’s not. But it does have pretty much everything I love about The Legend of Zelda, and that’s probably why I’ve been enjoying it so much. The puzzles, the secrets, the massive world to discover. There are plenty of things for a Zelda fan like myself to love in Crimson Desert. And I know it’s not for everyone, but what game is? Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 isn’t for everyone, and look at what it accomplished.

Crimson Desert Review: A Remarkable Open World That Often Asks Too Much

Crimson Desert offers one of the most impressive worlds in gaming, but the deeper you go, the more it asks you to meet it on its own terms.

Crimson Desert Is Basically Zelda, And I Love It

If Nintendo ever decided to make a Zelda game that looked this good, it would probably be something along the lines of Crimson Desert. In fact, I’d argue that hardware is really the main thing separating Zelda from Crimson Desert, although I could never give up my Nintendo Switch 2, especially now that Pokemon Pokopia is out. But even though Crimson Desert is essentially a grab bag of pretty much any game or franchise you can think of, I’d argue it’s more like Zelda than anything else—even Red Dead Redemption 2.

Who’s That Character?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Who’s That Character?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)

Crimson Desert Is Chock-Full of Zelda-Like Puzzles

Firstly, there are so many puzzles in Crimson Desert, it’s nearly impossible to count them at this stage. Zelda has always been a puzzle-heavy series, and has even been known for how it uses puzzles as a form of progression gating. Crimson Desert doesn’t necessarily use its puzzles as roadblocks to keep you from moving forward, but it does reward you with valuable Abyss Artifacts—the game’s primary skill, stat, and gear progression item—once you solve them. In that way, it makes doing them actually worth it, so long as you’re patient enough. The main difference between Crimson Desert‘s puzzles and standard Zelda puzzles, however, is that the latter are typically solved with a unique item or tool, whereas the former can be solved in a variety of different ways.

If Nintendo ever decided to make a Zelda game that looked this good, it would probably be something along the lines of Crimson Desert.

But that’s where Crimson Desert starts to resemble Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, in particular, and it starts to look even more like a game from Nintendo’s beloved franchise. Tears of the Kingdom‘s M.O. is experimentation, in the sense that it encourages players to solve the game’s biggest conundrums in their own way. This is especially true when it comes to Link’s Ultrahand ability, which allows players to move certain objects in the world to create their own path forward. As I stated before, Crimson Desert‘s Axiom Force ability is essentially Ultrahand, and it’s used to solve a lot of the game’s puzzles as well.

Crimson Desert Is a Copy-and-Paste Tears of the Kingdom in Some Big Ways

It takes more than puzzles for something to be like a Zelda game, though, as there are numerous titles out there that take a puzzle-centric approach to gameplay. But the reason I’m so quick to compare Crimson Desert to Tears of the Kingdom is because of how many signature mechanics it imitates, including Ultrahand, and it just happens to have a strong focus on puzzle-solving gameplay on top of that.

Not long into Crimson Desert‘s story, you visit one of many sky islands in a world design concept that looks like it was copied and pasted straight from Tears of the Kingdom. They look different, they serve a different purpose, but the concept is nonetheless the same. The sky is filled with floating islands that function as an entirely separate layer to Pywel, and they even have their own fast-travel points.

That’s not all either, as shortly after discovering the first sky island, Kliff gains wings that, when used, function exactly like Tears of the Kingdom‘s paraglider—although Kliff’s wings can be upgraded to have more speed and maneuverability. But why would you need something like a paraglider in the first place? Well, it’s because you’ll occasionally be diving to the ground of Pywel below from those sky islands, similarly to how you would in Tears of the Kingdom. And, in order to keep yourself from immediately dying on impact, you can pull out your wings to soften the fall. The wings also help you cover more horizontal ground while you’re in the air, just like you might use the paraglider to do so in Tears of the Kingdom.

There are also multiple biomes in Crimson Desert‘s world, including snowy mountains, a desert, and grassy plains. Even that makes it feel like Tears of the Kingdom.

But then there’s Crimson Desert‘s open world in general, which primarily moves you forward with your own curiosity, in a similar fashion to Tears of the Kingdom and its predecessor, Breath of the Wild. There is almost no handholding in Crimson Desert because it expects you to get out there and figure things out. Rarely, if ever, does it tell you what the next step is, simply because it wants you to discover that step on your own. To me, that makes finding things out there in the open world more satisfying, and it’s one of the reasons I love Tears of the Kingdom so much.

So, at some point during my dozens of hours with Crimson Desert, it stopped feeling like a comparison and just started feeling true. The more I’ve played it, the more I’ve realized just how much it taps into the same sense of curiosity and discovery that’s always defined The Legend of Zelda for me, where the game trusts you to try things, push boundaries, and figure it out without constantly pointing you in the right direction. That freedom is what makes its world so engaging, because it feels like it’s reacting to you rather than guiding you.

That’s really the heart of it. It may not have the name, and it may be pulling ideas from all over the place, but the feeling it creates is unmistakable. Crimson Desert captures what I’ve always loved about Zelda in a way I didn’t expect, and after more than 100 hours, calling it my new favorite Zelda game doesn’t feel like a stretch at all.