Pearl Abyss has delayed Charting the Unknown, the first expansion for Crimson Desert, by two weeks. The studio announced on Wednesday that the add-on will now arrive on October 29 instead of October 15, the date it had set when the expansion was revealed during a Sony State of Play presentation in September.
In a note posted to X and to the game's Steam page, Pearl Abyss said the extra time was needed to finish the build rather than to change what the expansion contains.
We are hard at work on Crimson Desert Enhanced: Charting the Unknown to bring you new adventures to Pywel. However, we have determined that we need additional development time to deliver a more polished and stable gameplay experience.
The studio also apologized for the wait. "We know many of you have been looking forward to returning to the game and we sincerely apologize for the longer wait," it wrote, adding that it would use the additional time to refine the expansion's content. Pearl Abyss gave no detail about which parts of the add-on needed further work.
What Charting the Unknown adds
The expansion extends the continent of Pywel outward to the sea, adding ships, underwater exploration and new islands off the coast. New story threads follow the returning characters Kliff, Oongka and Damiane, and the official description promises "an ominous presence in the desert and a dangerous political conflict to a journey beyond time and an ancient secret beneath the waves."
Beyond the new region, Charting the Unknown upgrades the game's house-building, lets players manage and rent out facilities for income, and adds a system for building bonds with the people of Pywel.
Charting the Unknown is priced at $24.99 and will release on PlayStation 5, Windows PC and Xbox Series X. Eurogamer reported that it will be available for every version of the game except the one sold through the Mac App Store.
Crimson Desert launched on March 19 and has sold more than six million copies, according to Polygon, placing its first expansion a little over seven months after release.
The expansion's Steam page also carries a generative AI disclosure, noted by Rock Paper Shotgun, stating that the technology is used "in a supplementary capacity during the creation of some 2D prop assets" and that any such assets are replaced by the studio's art and development teams. Some AI-generated assets reached the base game at launch, prompting an apology from Pearl Abyss and a promise to audit the game's assets.
