Online game "Black Desert"

Black Desert Online is considered the most beautiful online role-playing game of those published in Russian. To be sure of this, just once to launch BDO, as it is called by its fans. Monsters, characters, ancient ruins, large open world with picturesque landscapes - the artists have paid attention to every detail. In addition, a mode with improved graphics was recently added to Black Desert, which is indicated by the word Remastered in the title. But it is not only the graphics that makes the game interesting. Let's find out what else can captivate the Korean developers.

The action takes place on a continent where a meteorite with magical properties once crashed. The wreckage of this celestial body, called black stones, allowed an ancient civilization to create amazing mechanisms and magical objects of incredible power. But they also carried a threat: releasing the energy of such a boulder could blow up an entire city. This is why hundreds of years after the Precursors disappeared, their technology was hunted down by peoples and nations. Having survived the war, the plague and the barbarian invasion, the rival powers of Calferon and Valencia seek one last way to achieve victory - the black stones. One of them just caught your hero, so you will have to solve the mystery of the magic wreckage and decide the outcome of the confrontation by acting on one or the other side of the conflict.

To start your adventure, you have to create a character: choose one of 20 classes and take advantage of the detailed customization, which allows you to "mold" exactly the appearance you like. Hair style, eye color, facial features, height, muscles, tattoos, and even gender expression - all the parameters that come to mind are available. The editor also shows you how difficult the hero is to control and how effective he is in combat. The character of the protagonist and the attitude of neutral characters towards him depends on the choice of constellation. For example, those born under "Hammer" are considered reliable business partners, and under "Goblin" are born smart guys and specialists in potions. However, if there is no desire to mess around with the thickness of the lips, leg length and zodiac, Black Desert allows you to choose a ready-made version - a personality created by someone else. There are hundreds of them in the catalog.

Once on the starting location, you meet the Black Spirit - a creature in the form of a toothy cloud, which helps with tasks and passing the plot. The peculiarity of the game is that you can close the chapters of the scenario alone. Up until level 56, when the story wraps up and there's plenty of group fun like guild wars, you're free to act on your own. Explore the world, sail the seas, fight evil spawns, build your own manor, create useful items, trade, and tame riding animals, all without any help from outside. A rather unusual solution, as for a mass role-playing game. But first of all, no one is forced to give up the company, and secondly, not everyone likes to perform feats in a herd. Everyone chooses the format of behavior that they prefer.

The second important difference between Black Desert Online - the absence of the usual raids and dungeons. Yes, the game is full of activities for every taste, from peaceful crafts to piracy, but some fancy stuff is still missing - this reminds BDO classics of the genre. The emphasis is placed on the methodical sweeping of territories of hostile monsters in order to get trophies, or as this process is commonly called among gamers, grind. Kill, collect your loot, put experience points into your hero's skills - and do it all over again. This may not sound like much fun, but given the abundance of secondary activities and the beauty of the design, it is fascinating.

Finally, the game impresses with its user-friendly interface. It's not just well-designed - you can customize it however you want. You can add and remove any panels with icons, move everything to a place where it will not be an eyesore. Unlike other representatives of the genre, where it is difficult to see the beauty behind the piles of menus, icons, notifications and graphs, here the user is free to place the interface elements on the screen, as if they were tools in their own workshop.

There are 20 character classes to choose from, and they have a fixed gender. A warrior, for example, can only be a man, and a sorceress a woman. On the other hand, many professions have close analogues, you can take an archer as well as an archer, a wizard as well as a wizard, and a ninja guy uses the same weapons and performs the same role in battle as a kunoichi girl. Also, no one is stopping you from making a lady look like a man in the editor, and vice versa. The types of heroes are really different: the warrior wields a sword and wears sturdy armor, while the archers use ranged skills. If the enemy gets too close, they can break the distance in one swift movement. While the sorceress has a range of evasive tricks, the barbarian takes the brunt of the attack, swinging his axes and hurling them like tomahawks on occasion. The ninja is a master of teleport and stealth assassinations, and those who like a support class with simple control take the little shai carrying a boomerang behind her back.

Separately, we should mention the Fury and Stryker - both classes use their own bodies instead of weapons, that is, fighting with their hands and feet. Unusual solution for the fantasy environment, which is associated with two-meter swords and axes weighing the owner. However, in Black Desert has found a place for good old kung fu. The martial arts movies are reminiscent of the lan: a girl fights with a pendulum - a blade attached to the end of a motley ribbon.

The characters have different skills, but their pumping is made by the general pattern: you perform a task or kill someone, get experience points, invest them in the development of skills. Build up a hand is allowed right from the start - at least on the squirrels that graze a few tens of meters from where the hero was born. But what is useful passing the plot, rather than just beating everyone in a row, is the rewards in the form of additional inventory cells. The fact is that there is a lot of loot - in the bag of the initial level all will not fit. Therefore, it is necessary to perform basic tasks or, alternatively, to buy a pet, which will also collect trophies for the owner. To make fast progress will not hurt and support your friend: if he has a high level, you can go with him to the habitat of powerful monsters and catch up with his partner on the experience literally a few hours.

An important resource in the game is knowledge, which determines the scale of energy expended on different actions, from chopping trees to making items. To acquire knowledge, it is sufficient to simply explore the locations: communicate with characters, read the inscriptions and so on. Of course, in addition to role characteristics, equipment is of great importance. Items are obtained in the most logical ways - in battle or trade deals. But there is a nuance. No one prevents the use of the same weapons and clothing at different levels, the main thing - in time to improve these things with artifacts, or "sharpen" them, as fans of the genre say.

The battles, in keeping with the whole design, are made as spectacular as possible. Heroes use combo attacks, pirouettes, somersaults - all this is accompanied by flashes, sparks, beams of energy, like a first-class circus show. Battles are made by the "non-target" principle, so you can't just choose an enemy with your mouse and relax, waiting for the attacks to be launched automatically. Instead you have to aim, because the damage is inflicted to the place your character hits. The role of your opponents are both monsters and heroes controlled by other users. Except that there is no usual for the genre arenas, where the owners of the most pumped up bully fight each other. You can challenge the alien anywhere, but only if you reach high levels, and then you will also get the right to attack anyone who wants to. And mass fights in format PvP (players vs. players) flare up because of the territory on the map, and participate in such wars are members of guilds - clubs of interest that bring together dozens and hundreds of people.

The core of the combat system consists of skills developed for experience. These hits and moves are allowed to be used with a certain frequency: one, let's say, reloads for 5 seconds, the second - 7, the third - 10, and as soon as the counter is zeroed, you can hit again. Fights, for all their outward beauty, are a series of keystrokes to which certain techniques are assigned. All that is needed is attention and agility. After reaching level 56 and completing the story, new abilities open up. To the "Tradition" stance available at the start, the "Awakening" stance is added - it can change both the fighting style and the weapon in the hands of the character. For example, the hero of the Sword Master class changes his blade to a halberd and starts to strike across the square, mopping up enemies in packs. Other professions are similarly transformed, although if you want you can leave what you had and continue to fight in the same format.

The game offers plenty of entertainment for those who are tired of performing tasks in and out of the story. The breaks between feats are reasonable to devote to hunting, taming pets, alchemy, cooking, and gathering resources - each of these activities is beneficial. Say, fishing brings valuable items, and in the process you can put the hero on a machine and get an income without any effort. Stand alone in BDO is trade: the open world is allowed to lay their own routes, so they go to the caravans. Or ships, if you master the sea routes. But on the waves and on the dunes of the Black Desert merchants face dangers - in the form of pirates and robbers.

To own something you have to spend influence points - this is a special resource, which is awarded for completing tasks. If you are engaged in trade, for example, these points can be used to open additional transport hubs and get more profit. They go to the private property, from a small shack to luxurious mansion, and the production facilities for those who have decided to engage in the craft on a grand scale, and to rent powerful weapons. However, the amount of this resource is of course, so users join together also for the sake of joint possession of something - be it stables, workshops, warehouses, barracks for workers or just houses.

Black Desert Online is a very beautiful and exciting game with spectacularly designed battles. In addition it is free-to-play, and you don't need to spend money to grow the hero. But you will need a more powerful computer and SSD drive instead of old hard drive. But there's nothing you can do about it - beauty, as you know, requires sacrifice.

Zarium, October 2020