Crimson Desert’s Hero: The Actor’s Battle for Character Development
Even if you haven’t followed the tumultuous development of Crimson Desert, its chaotic nature is evident in the game itself. Pearl Abyss’ open-world RPG is packed with ideas but struggles to weave them together seamlessly. Alec Newman, the voice actor for the protagonist Kliff, shared that his five-year recording journey was similarly impacted by a lack of direction and a constantly shifting narrative.
In a chat on a podcast, Newman described the recording experience as a rollercoaster, marked by “various periods of low and then very high intensity.” Elements like his character’s name (which was originally MacDuff) and aspects of his backstory were in flux throughout the years, with Newman recalling that he was told to start recording “in earnest” about two years into the process.
“For the first year and a half, it was just a demo as far as I knew,” he mentioned. “They said, ‘We’re going to start recording in earnest now,’ and I was like, ‘What do you mean? We’ve been doing this for ages!’”
This constant back-and-forth made it challenging for Newman to grasp the actual plot of the game.
“With this project, it was interesting because they kind of, I don’t want to say they kept changing the goalpost, but we started off recording with cards detailing different parts of Pywel, various characters, and their factions,” he explained. “And I kept asking, ‘Yes, but what is happening?’”
About halfway through, Newman felt the need to urge Pearl Abyss to flesh out Kliff’s personal story arc.
“After about two and a half years, they decided they really wanted the Greymanes storyline to resonate, focusing on themes of family and reconciliation,” he said. “I think that’s the main narrative thread when you start. I don’t want to say they panicked, but they were like, ‘Oh yeah, we really want this. We want Kliff to care about his comrades,’ and I said, ‘Well, he does, but you haven’t written that monologue.’ So we gradually incorporated it wherever we could, trying to highlight any moments of humor, though I’ll be honest, those instances were fewer than they could have been.”
Newman emphasized the importance of making Kliff more than just a “stoic” character, noting, “It’s very, very hard to play 150 hours with someone who doesn’t reveal anything.” His commitment to ensuring Kliff had depth is commendable. In expansive open-world games like Crimson Desert, an RPG protagonist should be more than just a means for players to explore; the emotional connection to the world and its inhabitants is crucial. Whether Crimson Desert succeeded in this regard is subjective and varies from player to player.
