Crimson Desert's Charting the Unknown story content needs you to beat the game first

If you haven't finished Crimson Desert yet, you'll have to wrap up the main story before you can play the new character stories in Charting the Unknown. Pearl Abyss PR and marketing director Will Powers laid out how the DLC unlocks on Dropped Frames.

There are two entry points. The story content for Damiane, Oongka and Kliff requires a completed main storyline, because, as Powers put it, "the story content specifically, it takes place after the main game."

The second entry point is far friendlier. Once you've established the Greymane camp in Chapter 3, you can jump into the new open-world content, which covers exploration, naval gameplay and pretty much everything outside the character-specific stories. That includes a quest line tied to a new area of the map.

Powers described the three character storylines as "effectively an epilogue for all three characters." The trio isn't traveling together anymore, and each story follows what one of them does in the world after the main game ends. He said players "didn't really get to explore a lot of their backstory, a lot of their motivations during the main game."

Romance options are also in the mix. Powers said "we wanted to bring it in a meaningful way," pointing to how much the portrayal of the three main characters has shifted since launch.

Charting the Unknown goes live on Thursday, Oct. 29, at 3pm PT, 6pm ET or 10pm UTC. It's coming to Steam, PlayStation Store, Xbox Store and Epic Games Store, and pre-orders stay open until release.

A base game patch drops at the same time, and Pearl Abyss asks players to download and install it before launching the game.