Pearl Abyss Refused to Use Unreal Engine 5 During Crimson Desert Development

One of the most notable releases of the year is Crimson Desert, an open-world RPG from Pearl Abyss. Despite a rough launch, the game has managed to win over its audience and improve significantly—thanks to the developers’ regular release of free updates that not only fix bugs but also add new content.

As it turns out, Crimson Desert could have looked completely different—specifically, it could have been built using Unreal Engine 5. Instead, however, the studio decided to develop the game using its own BlackSpace Engine. As Jin-hwan Kim, Lead Engineer, and Jin-ho Yoon, Senior Leader of the Game Engine Graphics Division, explained in a recent interview with Mein MMO, the developers chose not to use Unreal Engine 5 for Crimson Desert because they believe their own engine is better suited for bringing a large-scale game world to life. You can check out more details from Pearl Abyss below:

“Since the Black Desert engine was developed in-house, it would have been unusual to switch to a commercial engine for the new Crimson Desert project. While commercial engines are excellent and offer many practical features, we didn't want to rely on external technology for our core competencies in game development.

Furthermore, our development approach might not have been compatible with that of a commercial engine. If we had had to wait for updates to get the necessary features, we wouldn't have been able to release the game on our desired schedule. Therefore, we wanted to maintain better control over the process.

The most important aspect in developing the Blackspace Engine was seamless support for various platforms and the ability to create diverse games. Because we primarily started with the Blackspace Engine to create these diverse game worlds, I believe it will certainly be possible to develop, for example, FPS or TPS games.”

Pearl Abyss has decided not to follow CD Projekt RED’s lead and to continue developing its own game engine. As is well known, The Witcher 4, the Polish studio’s next project, will use Unreal Engine 5 instead of its own Red Engine. According to Michał Nowakowski, the studio’s co-CEO, Unreal Engine 5 will allow the studio to implement the technologies it wants to showcase in its upcoming ambitious game.

As for Crimson Desert, last week the developers released another update, Patch Notes Version 2.03.00, which fixes a number of bugs. Additionally, next month Pearl Abyss will release its first major DLC— Charting the Unknown. In this DLC, players will be able to explore new territory by ship, dive underwater, build large-scale facilities, and start romantic relationships. The exact release date for the Crimson Desert DLC is set for October 15.