Crimson Desert Player Uses a Poor Raccoon to Show… Well… This May Be NSFW

As players work their way through Crimson Desert, they’re discovering more and more unexpected things they can do in the open world. We’ve seen players learn they can tag team to an extent, cook meat with light from their sword, and even catapult themselves across the map with the power of trees. But this next find… well, I don’t think anyone saw this one coming.

Warning! Spoilers… and maybe a NSFW tag for Crimson Desert to follow:

Anyone who’s played Crimson Desert will know it’s packed with animals large and small. Many animals you can actually pick up (one early quest tasks you with lugging a sheep across town). Enter StaffProfessional68, who had a thought about the animals I doubt many others would have.

In the clip below, we see StaffProfessional68 pick up a raccoon and then submerge it in water. After a dozen seconds, the raccoon dies, letting the player skin it for resources (a small bone, two lean meat, and three thin hides, if you were wondering). Yes, Crimson Desert actually has an animal drowning mechanic, seemingly for no reason at all.

StaffProfessional68’s video, which has nearly 2,000 upvotes on reddit, was met with a mix of horror at the player’s actions, and praise for the developers at Pearl Abyss for having this sort of detail in the game. Here’s a snippet:

“I thought, ‘Oh he is going to show us how to tame the raccoons,’ and I got all excited…” “Stuck between worrying about you and thinking the devs did a great job lol,” said another. “Wow, that’s cruel! But 10/10 for the Devs!” another commented. Added another player: “You monster!!! 10/10 gameplay.”

Eventually, players wondered if this works with other animals. It seems StaffProfessional68 has been thorough with their tests, confirming it works with cats and even kids (the baby goat kind, not the human kind, although I wouldn’t put it past this game). So yes, Crimson Desert does indeed have a drowning mechanic for some animals.

But what’s the point of this feature? There is no way to butcher an animal such as the raccoon after catching one in this way, leaving the only option to place it back on the ground — or, as we’ve seen, drown it. Or, you can carry the animal back to the Livestock Black Market merchant to sell it to them, but that feels like a lot of work for little gain.

So, this one just seems to be a bit of a weird hidden detail, yet another example of the lengths Pearl Abyss went to to make Crimson Desert as much of an open world sandbox as it is an open world action game. It’s all getting a bit Red Dead Redemption 2, isn’t it?

We’ve got plenty more on Crimson Desert, including player requests to make the dragon more accessible, patch notes for yesterday’s game-changing update, and our Crimson Desert review. If you’re jumping into Crimson Desert’s huge open world, we recommend you take a look at our guide to Things to Do First in Crimson Desert, plus Things Crimson Desert Doesn’t Tell You (we’ve got 28 and counting!). We’ve also got a guide to the Best Early Weapons we recommend picking up, the Best Skills to Get First (including a handy explainer of the skills system), and 34 Essential Tips and Tricks to help you succeed in Pywel.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.