Crimson Desert’s Fast-Forward Dialog Feature Sparks Discussions About Skipping Conversations

With plenty of people excited for Pearl Abyss’ upcoming open-world action game Crimson Desert, some gamers have found reasons to be critical about the title. As caught by IGN, social media user Jake Lucky had posted a video of Crimson Desert, noting that his favorite feature was the ability to speed through NPC dialog. This video has seen plenty of replies from people that seemingly don’t like the idea of fast forwarding through in-game conversations.

“One of the features I really liked in Crimson Desert is you can fast forward through dialogue while still being able to understand the context, it’s not a jump skip, but a time save,” wrote Lucky. Among the several responses was one social media user asking, “You’re… playing an RPG, but you’re happy you can skip dialogue? I’d like to play an FPS, but can we have a button that lets me skip the shooting?”

Lucky offered a defense for the ability to speed through the in-game conversations by noting that it’s a great option for those with limited free time to play games. “Hey when you only got 5 hours to play it sure is nice,” he posted, “plus not every dialogue was something I needed the full story on (like rescuing a cat off a roof). To each their own.”

While some may have been negative on the idea, others have also taken to praising the feature. SwanyPlaysGame responded to Lucky’s post by bringing up interesting utilities for speeding through dialog, like the potential to make second run through faster, or having to repeat conversations after dying constantly to challenging bosses.

“It isn’t ‘TikTok’ brain,” wrote SwanyPlaysGames. “When you have a game this big, you see a ton of repetitive cutscenes. You don’t need to watch the dialogue for a cutscene you’ve already seen 7 times (for example turning in a bounty). I actually wish they had a skip button and not just fast forward. Having the option to skip or fast forward isn’t a bad thing.”

The recent run of marketing for Crimson Desert has revealed quite a few details about the title, including the fact that it will feature voice acting fully performed by human actors. Just last month, Pearl Abyss had also released a trailer showing off the process that went into the creation of its various characters. It featured voice actors like Alec Newman, Stewart Scudamore, and Rebecca Hansen.

Earlier this week, Pearl Abyss took to social media to celebrate a major milestone – Crimson Desert has been added to more than 3 million wishlists. This milestone came just a month after the previous one in early February, when it had crossed 2 million.

Crimson Desert is steadily making its way towards its March 19th release date on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. While you wait, take a look at how the studio will make use of the High CPU Frequency Mode on PS5 Pro to ensure that its open-world traversal feels as “seamless as possible,” while still maintaining a high level of visual fidelity. Along with this, Pearl Abyss has also confirmed that it will support the upgraded PSSR, which made its debut just last week with Resident Evil Requiem.