Yesterday introduced us the inaugural New Sport+ Showcase, through which a number of content material creators determined to chop out the Kojima-glazing intermediary and simply exhibit a crapload of video games. Whereas the occasion ended up getting ridiculed loads for feeling extra like a podcast than a showcase, it did embody fascinating new glimpses of various upcoming video games, together with what claims to to be one of many largest open-world RPGs of 2026.
Crimson Desert, the sprawling action-adventure with the racecar-like horses from Black Desert On-line builders Pearl Abyss, is ready to launch on March 19. PR rep Will Powers was requested throughout New Sport+ concerning the precise measurement of the sport world, after among the preliminary previews appeared that the sport’s fairly huge vistas have been “only a tiny nook of the map.” Powers then gave an eye-popping reply:
Twice the playable space of Skyrim. It’s bigger than the map of Crimson Useless Redemption 2. The realm that you simply’re enjoying in, the continent of Pywel is completely huge.
In equity to Pearl Abyss, that’s not a very out-of-pocket factor for a developer largely identified for an enormously standard freemium MMORPG to say, particularly given how a lot of Crimson Desert seems to be like an MMORPG that ultimately had a single-player motion sport grafted into it (which is what really occurred). However nonetheless, that’s plenty of sport. Or at the very least plenty of sport map.
Crimson Desert claims to have twice the playable space as Skyrim and a map bigger than Crimson Useless Redemption 2 pic.twitter.com/iCtLZ7IWU4
— Jake Fortunate (@JakeSucky) January 9, 2026
The footage shared to this point in trailers and previews does present a reasonably world and a few strong fight, and look, I’ll at all times give brownie factors to any sport that allows you to experience a dragon. However what concerning the chance that it will likely be plenty of area with no actual objective? Powers himself tries to chop off that concern on the cross. “Dimension doesn’t actually matter if there’s nothing to do,” he mentioned “Open-world video games are about doing issues, having actions, having distractions, so we wished to create a world that’s not solely huge however extremely interactive.”
To her credit score, streamer Luality chimed in pretty typically through the interview making an attempt to press Powers on what sorts of interactions the participant can look ahead to on this big world, asking in case you can battle dragons or romance NPCs. The most effective Powers got here up with in response was emphasizing “all types of deep crafting programs.”
Therein lies the actual concern with making guarantees about map measurement within the 12 months of our Lord 2026: it’s lengthy since change into a ineffective metric. Having a sport world the dimensions of Australia is all effectively and good, you may even have or not it’s filled with empty area to traverse. However you must do extra with empty area than simply fill it with crafting provides. That’s a legit motive to reward video games that really make their terrain significant, like Kojima’s Dying Stranding 2, and a motive to place in your skeptic glasses each time anybody begins hyping up the dimensions of their map somewhat than what’s in it.
