While many games nowadays are built on Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5, Pearl Abyss’ Crimson Desert is built on its own proprietary Blackspace Engine. In a recent discussion, lead engineer Jin-hwan Kim and senior leader of the game engine graphics division Jin-ho Yoon explain that they opted to build their own engine as they “didn’t want to rely on external technology”.
Pearl Abyss already built its own engine for its online MMO Black Desert, which was heavily evolved into the tools used to create the single-player open-world of Crimson Desert. While the team could’ve used Unreal to build its reactive open-world, the duo revealed that they “wanted to maintain better control” over development, they told Mein MMO.
Since the game’s release, Crimson Desert has seen rapid updates that have fundamentally changed the game. While the game was impressive on release, it’s now more filled out with less jank and a more easy-to-follow narrative. However, the team explained that these quick, game-changing updates might not have been possible if they had opted to use Unreal.
“Our development approach might not have been compatible with that of a commercial engine,” they said. “If we had had to wait for updates to get the necessary features, we wouldn’t have been able to release the game on our desired schedule. Therefore, we wanted to maintain better control over the process.”
The tech team explained that Pearl Abyss used to custom build its tech specifically for each game. With that in mind, they admit that their previous Black Desert engine “is so heavily specialised for Black Desert that it’s difficult to develop games of different genres with it”. However, Blackspace was purpose-built not just for Crimson Desert, but for any game they’d like to build.
“The most important aspect in developing the Blackspace Engine was seamless support for various platforms and the ability to create diverse games,” they said. “Because we primarily started with the Blackspace Engine to create these diverse game worlds, I believe it will certainly be possible to develop, for example, FPS or TPS games.”
With this in mind, the Blackspace Engine is the foundation for Pearl Abyss’ future with more games planning to use the technology. Right now, the team is also working on getting the engine and Crimson Desert functioning on the low-power Nintendo Switch 2 with a whole heap of optimisations needed to bring the game to the handheld.
Additionally, Pearl Abyss is officially working on major expansions for Crimson Desert that will add even more content to its already gargantuan world. As for what other games the team will possible make on its gorgeous open-world engine… who knows? A GTA-like, maybe? A multiplayer shooter? A racing game? The possibilities are endless.
