Crimson Desert's Charting the Unknown DLC is out for $24.99

Pearl Abyss released Charting the Unknown, the DLC for Crimson Desert Enhanced, on October 29, 2026, and announced it on Steam the same day in the post "Charting the Unknown Is Now Available". According to SteamDB, the DLC costs $24.99. It requires the base game, which sells for $69.99 on Steam with no discount.

Since the launch, Pearl Abyss has pushed three patches to Steam on PC and Mac: 2.04.00 and 2.04.02 on October 30, and 2.04.03 on October 31.

What the DLC adds

Xbox Wire lists three new storylines, one each for Kliff, Oongka and Damiane, plus ocean exploration, which it calls something "many players have been asking for". The Garden of Trials is a combat challenge in which you face the bosses from your earlier adventures one after another. Push Square writes that the base game becomes "just a corner" of the map once the DLC is installed, though most of the new space is ocean with islands dotted around it.

The story is gated behind the campaign. GamesRadar+ quotes Pearl Abyss's Powers saying the story content "takes place after the main game", and Powers calls it "effectively an epilogue". The official 2.04.00 patch notes confirm that the new quests appear in the Journal after you complete "Journey's End" from the main story. According to Powers, you do not need to finish the story to explore the new open-world areas.

Two practical points from the same patch notes: save files created with the DLC installed cannot be loaded or used for cross-save in a game version without it, and upscaling and frame generation can now be selected separately. PC Gamer reports the DLC needs 50GB of storage.

The release came later than first planned. In September, Game Informer reported an October 15 launch on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. GamesRadar+ then reported a two-week delay, with Pearl Abyss seeking "a more polished and stable gameplay experience".

Patches and player numbers

Patch 2.04.02 fixes ships that stayed stationary, sea serpents that would not attack, missing quest and challenge rewards and occasional crashes, and adds a menu notification that lets you start pioneering missions directly. Patch 2.04.03 fixes pioneering missions that could not be completed, lets you pick several items at once in "Gift", and fixes spouses not giving gifts after marriage.

On Steam the DLC is rated Mostly Positive, with 71% of 494 user reviews positive. The base game stands at Very Positive, with 83% of 179,121 reviews positive. On Steam's most played chart for October 30, the game ranked 80th with a peak of 26,057 players, 50 places higher than a week earlier. On October 31 it peaked at 38,109 concurrent players.

The game has changed a lot since its March 19 release. According to Xbox Wire, Patch 2.00 in August added new story moments and expanded voice-over and language support. Push Square's writer admits the frequent updates left him "disinclined to get too far into it" until the game was in a more finished state.

For returning players, the DLC's new areas are open without finishing the story, but the character storylines require completing the main campaign. If you play across game versions, keep the save restriction in mind. GamesRadar+ has also reported that updates are slowing down in "scope, scale, and pace" as Pearl Abyss shifts to DLC.