- crimson desert Actor Alec Newman says Pearl Abyss continued to change the game’s story throughout development.
- Newman says he had to work “on the story and the characters as much as he could.”
- He suggests that the studio “kept moving the goalposts” and even changed Kliff’s name.
Alec Newman, the voice behind crimson desertThe protagonist, Kliff, has revealed that he had to continue pushing Pearl Abyss to clarify the game’s story and his character during the many years of development.
Speaking in an interview on the Friends Per Second podcast, Newman spoke at length about the game, saying he worked on it “off and on” for five years while “recording various iterations of this character at various stages of development.”
“Almost two years into recording, they said, ‘Well, we’re going to start recording seriously now.’ And I was like, ‘What the hell do you mean? We’ve been doing this for years!'” Newman exclaimed.
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Newman is a seasoned actor in the industry and is also known for his role as Adam Smasher in Cyberpunk 2077but he said crimson desert It was very different because Pearl Abyss would continually change things during development.
“I don’t want to say they kept changing the pole, but we started recording with cards from the different parts of Pywel,” Newman said. “You know, various characters and he’s from this faction and that faction. And I kept saying, ‘Yeah, but what’s going on?'”
The actor also revealed that Kliff was originally called Macduff for a good portion of his filming process, but when Pearl Abyss changed his character’s name, Newman felt the need to push for clarity.
“When Kliff stopped being Macduff, which was a considerable amount of time after this was filmed, once they settled on Kliff, I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing on the story and the character as much as I could,” he said.
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Newman also addressed the game’s open world and aspects of the game that appealed to players, adding that there were stages in the game’s writing process where Pearl Abyss continued to “move the focus.”
“I have to be honest, I felt pressure from a certain type of developer with a certain type of game,” he continued. “I’m glad I fought for it because you can tell when you read reviews of the game that’s out. You can tell when you talk to people. Today I talked to some people who are actually playing it and loving it. And while they love some of the voice acting and characterization, the advantage of this game is clearly the size of the open world. And the fact that you can pick up a cat.
“I think that has to do with the preferences of the developers and the people who wrote the scripts for these games, which kept changing. So at various stages it felt a lot like making a TV series where they kept moving the focus. And actually, it’s not a secret. If you look at the way Crimson Desert came to be, they did change things.”
crimson desertThe story has also been criticized since its release, because while the action and splendor of the open world has drawn players in for hours on end, the story-driven adventure lacks the depth that some were hoping for. Pearly Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young even agreed that the game’s story could have been better.
The Greymanes and the “idea of family and trying to put something back together” were also not defined early in development, and a “bridging point” came two and a half years later when Pearl Abyss wanted that aspect of the story to really resonate.
“After a while, you know, there’s only so much you can go with it. [Kliff] “He’s kind of… not flat, but kind of stoic,” Newman said. “Now, as a Scot, I know what that means. But it’s very, very difficult to play 150 hours with someone who never gives anything away. So what’s been gratifying is that, as people have played over 100 hours, they’ve found bits of Kliff that sometimes speak to something more emotional.
“The whole Greymanes thing, after about two and a half years, they decided they really wanted that to resonate. This idea of family and trying to put something back together. I think that’s the main story plot of the game, or the only story plot of the game when you start it.
“And that was the starting point. I don’t want to say they started panicking, but they said, ‘Oh yeah, we really want this. We really want Kliff to care about his comrades.’ And I said, ‘Well, he does, but you haven’t written that monologue.’
“But I’ll be honest, those moments were less than they could have been.”
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