Crimson Desert‘s Kliff actor, Alec Newman, has revealed his thoughts on the game’s narrative as he experienced it during development. Although Crimson Desert has been massively successful, its main story has come in for plenty of criticism from players, and Newman’s perspective may shed light on why.
Crimson Desert offers players no shortage of things to do. However, in open-world RPGs, a strong story is often the beating heart of the world, and it’s an area in which many felt Pearl Abyss’s latest game fell short. The developer has already acknowledged these criticisms. Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young has publicly said that he sympathizes with players’ frustrations with Crimson Desert‘s story, stating that it “would have been nice” to have done better in this regard.
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Crimson Desert Kliff Actor Talks Five-Year Recording Process
Crimson Desert Kliff actor Alec Newman recently appeared on Skill Up’s Friends Per Second podcast and shared his experience recording the game across five years, which he described as “the gift that really did keep on giving.” According to Newman, it wasn’t until two years into recording for the game that the developer said it was “going to start recording in earnest now.” He described the process as a “rollercoaster,” but also said, “I don’t want to say they kept changing the goalpost… we started off recording with cards of the different parts of Pywel, and then you have various characters, he’s from this faction and he’s from that faction. I kept just saying, ‘Yes, but what is happening?'”
Newman also revealed his own influence on Crimson Desert‘s story. After Pearl Abyss settled on the name Kliff for the protagonist, he “just kept pushing and pushing and pushing about the story and character,” and “felt the pressure of a certain type of developer with a certain type of game,” revealing that he’s “glad he fought for that stuff.”
…you have various characters, he’s from this faction and he’s from that faction. I kept just saying ‘Yes, but what is happening?’
Ultimately, it seems that Pearl Abyss’s shifting priorities during development led to both Kliff and the game’s overall story suffering in the end product. “The whole Greymanes thing, after about two and a half years, they decided they really wanted that to resonate,” Newman explained. “This idea of family and trying to bring something back together… So that was a bridge point. I don’t want to say they started panicking, but they were like, ‘Oh yeah, we really want this. We really want Kliff to care about his comrades,’ and I said, ‘Well, he does, but you haven’t written that monologue.'” Of the moments where Kliff is allowed to be a little more expressive, Newman believes there are “fewer than there could have been.”
Pearl Abyss is already hard at work addressing players’ complaints through Crimson Desert updates, which have already added a decent amount of new content to the game after less than two weeks. It has been impressive to see the developer react so quickly to feedback, and while sweeping changes to the story may not be on the agenda, hopefully the studio has learned enough from the response so far that it can address these issues in any potential story DLC.
- Released
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March 19, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
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Pearl Abyss
- Publisher(s)
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Pearl Abyss
