Crimson Desert's soundtrack is criminally inoffensive but that hasn't stopped one song from driving me insane
There is so much about Crimson Desert that enthralls and deeply frustrates me—you can read about all that in my review—but something that had almost no impact on me was its soundtrack. That's quite the surprise for someone like myself. I'm the kind of person who absorbs every single note, melody, and instrument videogame music has to offer. I literally have a column talking about this very thing every single week. You're reading it right now!
Welcome to Critical Hit (formerly known as Soundtrack Sunday), where I celebrate and lament all things videogame music, audio design, and the ways our favourite games make our ears tingle.
But something about Crimson Desert's music is… a bit bland, perhaps even inoffensive. Which in itself is offensive, to me at least. Nothing about it particularly stands out—our senior guides writer Sean Martin says it feels like it's aping The Witcher 3's own score at times. Don't tell anyone at PC Gamer, but I never actually played that much of The Witcher 3. I'm sorry!
That lack of association causes this game's soundtrack to fade into the background even more for me. Not in the way where it helps further immerse me into Crimson Desert's world, but one where it simply ceases to exist. It's a game I could run on mute and I would probably notice no difference. Well, I would notice one difference. Because despite feeling largely uninspired by its music, one song has come to drive me to the edge of insanity.
It's not even bad, per se, but rears its head multiple times: Cooking a meal over the bonfire, purchasing goods from a grocer or from a butcher. I suppose it's meant to be a song that encapsulates culinary whimsy. But when I'm travelling to buy vegetables, buy meat, and then cook them together into a meal, that's three times in quick succession that I'm having to hear it. That certainly lends to that whole "driving me up the wall" thing. It's also a roughly 30-second track that loops over and over again, in a way I couldn't help but notice more so than I usually would with these shorter melodies.
I think part of it is also how the song sits in such stark contrast to the rest of the game's soundtrack. It's a similar case with the traditional Irish folksy track that plays when I'm doing things like purchasing armour and weapons, or refining my gear at the smithy. A little forgecore whimsy, this time. It's a nice enough song in isolation, but feels like a flashbang when it whirrs to life and cuts through Crimson Desert's otherwise ambient music. And then as soon as I leave these tradespeople or finish cooking my meal, a quick music sting gets shoved onto the end and I'm flung back into the silence.
Perhaps it's not the song itself that's causing my eye to twitch a little more every time I hear it, but rather the abruptness of it all. There's a lack of seamlessness to Crimson Desert's music, and that kinda bums me out! It doesn't help to pull me into this world I'm having a ton of fun exploring, despite everything in the game that frustrates me.
It's a shame when its overall audio design is actually very good. I love the sound of clashing metal in combat, the birds that chirp in the distance when I'm strolling through the forest, and the vague chatter that quietly occupies my ears when I enter more densely populated areas. That is all excellent and immersive stuff, and I only wish the soundtrack elevated the entire experience for me that tiny bit more. Especially for a game I could easily spend hundreds of hours in.