IGN's early Charting the Unknown review finds more Crimson Desert, not a better one
Six hours in, Travis Northup likes the ship combat, underwater exploration and romance, but calls the new story missions bland retreads and hit two crashes.
IGN has published an early review of Charting the Unknown, the first paid expansion for Crimson Desert Enhanced, after six hours of play. Travis Northup's verdict so far, posted October 30, 2026: the new seafaring activities are a lot of fun, but the added story content repeats the base game's weaknesses, and the bugs are back. No final score has been given yet.
The good: life at sea
The expansion is built around oceans. Northup describes ship crafting, crew hiring, harpoon fishing and ship-to-ship combat, along with underwater exploration that includes gliding around on the back of a sea turtle. He calls captaining a pirate crew "completely bizarre" in the context of Crimson Desert, and means it as a compliment.
Still to test are more base-building and property management, a combat arena gauntlet, and social links and romance options for NPCs, which he names as the feature he is most excited about.
The bad: the story
New story missions only unlock after you finish the main campaign, which IGN says only about 10% of Steam players have done, going by achievement data. So far they play like an extended epilogue: Kliff fights tougher versions of old bosses, while Damiane and Oongka get extra story time. Northup found most objectives a bland retracing of earlier moments, such as fishing with a familiar character or repeating an arm-wrestling scene.
The ugly: stability
In six hours he hit two hard crashes, a character standing behind him during an arm-wrestling match, and repeated blurry or flickering textures in cutscenes.
How it compares
IGN scored the base game 6 out of 10 at launch on March 20, 2026, praising its kitchen-sink design while finding the action underneath only "sometimes worth" the effort. Northup sums up the DLC with a callback to that review: if the original was a mile long and an inch deep, this adds "another half-mile".
Charting the Unknown launched on October 29 after a two-week delay. Players who have not tried the base game can test it first with the free five-hour console trial on PS5 and Xbox, which runs until January 6, 2027. IGN's final verdict will follow once the review is finished.
Source: IGN; Eurogamer.
