Pearl Abyss, the studio behind the MMORPG Black Desert, launched Charting the Unknown, the first paid DLC for its action-adventure Crimson Desert Enhanced, worldwide on Thursday at 11 PM CET. It costs $24.99 on Steam and is also out on Mac, the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. PlayStation Plus Premium and Deluxe members, and Xbox Series X|S players, will be able to try the base game free for five hours.
Most open worlds have an edge. Usually it is a coastline, the place where the map stops and the sea turns into scenery. Charting the Unknown moves that edge. You can build a ship and sail it to new islands, or dive below the waves for hidden treasure and ancient ruins.
The story picks up after the main one. Kliff, Oongka and Damiane have protected Pywel, the continent the game is set on, and each now sets out on a path of their own. That is the setup, and that is where I stop.
The Black Desert habits Crimson Desert kept
Crimson Desert began as a prequel to Black Desert Online, Wikipedia records, before Pearl Abyss made it a standalone world. It launched on March 19, 2026, as a single-player game with combo-based combat, and sold more than 2 million copies in its first 24 hours, according to Pearl Abyss. The family resemblance shows most in the parts of this DLC that have nothing to do with swords. Black Desert has long offered housing, fishing, farming and trading next to its fights.
Charting the Unknown brings that side across. Housing now goes past decoration: you decide where walls, windows and other structural pieces go, and the basic layout of your home. Liberate certain castles and you can decorate their courtyards and interiors too. You can lease and run facilities in some of the strongholds you have freed, and build wealth from them. And by building trust with certain people of Pywel, Kliff, Oongka and Damiane can start romantic relationships and even marry.
Pywel’s map used to stop at the waterline. Now it stops somewhere past the horizon, and I would not bet on Pearl Abyss leaving it there.
