Crimson Desert Players Need to Invest in 1 Stat Before Anything Else

Players jumping headfirst into Crimson Desert are being advised to spend the majority of their Abyss Artifacts on Stamina stat upgrades over anything else. This might not sound like sound advice in a game with as many flashy skills as Crimson Desert, but Stamina effectively underpins how enjoyable the experience is. Pearl Abyss’ flagship single-player RPG is nothing if not complicated and layered, and basic character stats are just the start of it.

Crimson Desert is a broadly excellent RPG with some big problems bubbling underneath, but its release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S devices has been mostly met with excitement and hype. It handles many of its progression and gameplay mechanics in a non-standard way, for one, and character leveling is one of those items. Instead of hoarding XP for discreet level-ups, players need to chase after Abyss Artifacts to spend them on stats and abilities. The base stats are Health, Spirit, and Stamina, with the latter in particular being extremely important.

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Crimson Desert’s Stamina Stat Is Crucial for Gameplay Enjoyment and Traversal

As per content creator WolfheartFPS’s advice on Twitter, Stamina is easily the most important early-game investment for Crimson Desert players. In a balancing move that mirrors what players experienced in Breath of the Wild, Crimson Desert’s traversal effectively hinges on having a solid Stamina pool for characters to draw upon. It affects both running and flying, and WolfheartFPS claims this makes traversal much more difficult early on. Since Crimson Desert isn’t afraid of breaking gameplay conventions in a way that might seem illogical at first, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the game may be softly nudging players towards early-game stat investment over picking flashy combat skills.

WolfheartFPS says that 200 Stamina should be the baseline minimum to aim for, and that’s because a pool of that size grants plenty of traversal resources. On top of that, 200 Stamina is also the minimum requirement for skills such as Aerial Swing (under the Axiom Force skill tree), providing even more options in both movement and combat. Health is the second most important base stat to level after Stamina, with Spirit being by far the least urgent of the three. Having a decent Stamina and Health pool helps a great deal for early-game progression in Crimson Desert, whereas Spirit passively regenerates on its own and makes it less punishing to ignore.

Crimson Desert will not have difficulty options or be easy, its developer says.

Crucially, stat upgrades apply across all playable characters simultaneously, meaning Abyss Artifacts invested in Kliff’s Stamina also carry over to Oongka and Damiane as they become available. This makes early stat investment even more impactful than it might initially appear, with the payoff compounding over time. Since many Abyss Artifacts are hidden behind traversal puzzles, having 200 Stamina will make finding more that much easier, to boot.

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)

While Crimson Desert is definitely an interesting deconstruction of many genre tropes, it’s not as big of a smash hit as some might’ve expected. With ‘Mixed’ reviews on Steam due to its complexity, mediocre narrative, and plodding pace, there’s a bit of a cloud hanging over it right now. Further, Pearl Abyss shares dropped nearly 30% after the initial review scores crystallized. While Crimson Desert isn’t a bad game by any meaningful metric, the incredible amount of pre-release hype it had might’ve affected the players’ expectations and, in turn, possibly helped diminish its review scores.