The articlegameplay, story, development, reception
Gameplay
The combat in Black Desert Online is action based, requiring manual aiming and free movement similar to those found in third-person shooters. The game offers housing, fishing, farming, and trading, as well as large player versus player siege events, and castle battles. It is well regarded for its advanced and in-depth character customization.
An active combat system requires precise manual aiming, dodging and using combos, unlike the tab-targeting system seen in most MMORPGs. Skills can be activated through use of
Story
Black Desert Online takes place in a high fantasy setting and revolves around the conflict between two rival nations, the Republic of Calpheon and the Kingdom of Valencia. Calpheon is very materialistic whereas Valencia is very spiritual.
Long ago, the four main areas, Calpheon, Serendia, Balenos, and Mediah, were at peace. This all changed when the Black Death started spreading via merchants from Valencia, in an area east of Mediah that controlled trading. Many around the world died of the plague. Some who did not, were expelled due to the black death causing paranoia. Eventually, the three of the main areas made an alliance and began a war that lasted for 30 years; with Mediah profiting the most by harvesting black stones and trading it to the others.
Development
Black Desert Online has been in development since 2010. The Korean studio Pearl Abyss was founded in September 2010 by Kim Daeil, previously a developer with Hangame and NHN Gaming, and began development of Black Desert Online shortly after. The game uses Pearl Abyss' custom Black Desert game engine specifically created to handle the fast rendering required for its seamless world and large-scale castle sieges with a lot of characters.
After agreeing a Japanese publishing deal with GameOn Japan on 8 September 2012 Pearl Abyss began releasing details of the game to the public. In November 2012 the game was demonstrated at G-Star. Black Desert Online was also showcased at Gamescom 2013.
Reception
Black Desert beta has been well received. The full game has received mixed or average reviews from critics, currently holding an average score of 73/100 across the PC, PS4, and Xbox One versions on Metacritic.
In April 2016, the publisher Kakao Games announced that Black Desert Online had achieved sales of 400,000 copies in its first month on the European and North American markets and was showing an average of 100,000 concurrent users. By March 2017, Black Desert had 3.4 million registered players in North America and Europe. By May 2018, more than 1.2 million copies of the game have sold on Steam in Europe and North America. As of September 2018, the game had over 10 million registered users worldwide.
