Patch 1.01.00 is here, and it does a little of everything

Crimson Desert patch 1.01.00 is now live on Steam, with PS5 and other platforms set to receive it soon. The update focuses on the sort of improvements people tend to notice immediately, namely shorter loading times, smoother movement, better controls, and a steady stream of quality-of-life changes across Pywel.

There are also new summonable mounts, faster travel and respawns, and a surprising number of small fixes that should make daily life in the game less annoying. A rare achievement for any patch, really.

New mounts, better resource collection, and world tweaks

Patch 1.01 expands travel options with five new mounts, each tied to specific unlock conditions before they can be obtained and summoned like standard mounts:

  • Legendary Animals
  • White Bear
  • Silver Fang
  • Snowwhite Deer
  • Boss’ Mounts
  • Rock Tusk Warthog
  • Icicle Edge Alpine Ibex

The world itself has been adjusted too. New material chests are now scattered around Pywel, wells now dispense five units of water per draw, and tools such as the Mining Knuckledrill and Demenissian Chainsaw automatically gather materials while mining or logging.

There is also a small but welcome fix for anyone tired of chasing pickpockets through residential doorways. Fleeing thieves are now less likely to sprint into houses.

Other world updates include:

  • Wholesale grocer NPCs have been added to regional farms
  • Some Knowledge entries have been adjusted to match those changes
  • Shop item knowledge can now be learned in one pass with a short three-second timer
  • The Pirate King Hat now has a slightly wider treasure detection range
  • The Knowledge Helm can collect all visible knowledge entries on screen at once

Refinement Coin and inventory improvements

A new Refinement Coin item has been added, allowing players to temper equipment up to Stage 4 without spending extra materials. It is not handed out for free, because that would be far too generous. Instead, it drops from specific main and faction quests.

Inventory management also gets a useful cleanup pass. A new Store all selected items option lets players move multiple marked items into private storage at once:

  • Shift + Right Mouse Button on PC
  • Square on PS5
  • X on Xbox

Once inventory expansion reaches the maximum of 240 slots, any additional expansion items now turn into boxes containing crafting materials and other loot instead of becoming dead weight.

The storage chest at Howling Hill Camp has also been moved from behind Karl to inside Kliff’s tent, which should save a bit of wandering around.

A separate item handling change means sealed items that go missing will now either become sealed or be registered as lost items. If a sealable item is left out, the game will also notify players after saving or loading.

Crafting and cooking get less fiddly

The update adds a Make Now button for both crafting and cooking. Once a recipe is selected, players can create it immediately from the recipe menu without manually reselecting ingredients every time.

Recipe lists in the Cooking and Crafting menus are also better organized, with recipes grouped by type such as Filling, Satisfying, and Hearty. It is the sort of cleanup that should have happened earlier, but at least it is happening now.

Abyss Cells from disappearing rocks can now be tossed into the Kuku Pot, which gives players a little more flexibility in how they use resources. Pearl Abyss also fixed issues including:

  • The Energy Drain Abyss gear effect not triggering properly
  • Certain Abyss gates opening in unintended situations

Movement, flight, and stamina changes

A major part of the patch is devoted to how movement feels on foot and on horseback. Speed now ramps more naturally when holding or tapping run, and players no longer lose speed simply because they are not holding the run button the entire time. Sustained sprinting still requires periodic sprint input, so no one gets to ignore stamina entirely.

Flight has also been tuned up:

  • Flight now uses less stamina
  • A brief pause before moving has been removed
  • Equipped gear can now be used while flying
  • A bug that prevented Flight from activating in some cases has been fixed
  • Stamina costs for Aerial Maneuver and Aerial Swing have been reduced
  • Starting to glide no longer causes a short drop in movement speed

Interaction range with NPCs and objects has been increased, turning responsiveness has been improved for short movement adjustments, and the game is now better at handling object interactions in general. If you try to draw a weapon where it is not allowed, the UI now tells you so instead of silently judging you.

Combat changes, including an Aerial Stab nerf

One of the more notable combat changes targets Aerial Stab. Players had found a way to spam it in midair, which naturally broke balance, so the skill has been reworked. The animation has been improved, but stamina cost now increases with repeated use, keeping it useful for movement while limiting abuse in combat.

Pearl Abyss also fixed a bug where Aerial Stab would not activate if Kliff had a non-one-handed sword as the main weapon.

Other combat-related changes include:

  • Meteor Kick can no longer be used in midair when there is no reachable ground
  • Focused Repulsion now has the correct knockback radius
  • Small and Medium Stoneback Crabs now visibly fall backward when hit by Force Palm
  • Bosses and some enemies no longer attack immediately after the player dies and revives
  • The stun gauge for bosses dismounting from mounts no longer resets in odd edge cases
  • Tool-type items now show an aim key guide
  • Weapons can be drawn with a dedicated unsheathe key, and the UI now shows that shortcut during combat

Keyboard, mouse, and input improvements

Mouse and keyboard players get a few practical changes as well. Inventory interaction has moved from hover-based behavior to click-based control:

  • Left-click to select an item
  • Right-click or double-click to use it

Selling items at shops is now quicker too, since items can be sold by double-clicking them.

Two skills, Blinding Flash and Spinning Slash, should also stop getting interrupted in some repeat-input situations.

There is a new Precise Control mode for Axiom Force when using mouse and keyboard. Holding Q or the mouse back button while moving the mouse allows more exact object movement, which should help with puzzles and delicate placement tasks.

Quest fixes and smoother progression

Several quest issues have been corrected, including progress blockers and objective bugs:

  • In the Prologue quest New Journey, progression no longer breaks if an object is thrown at Sebastian during the attack sequence
  • In Chapter 2’s Missing Companion, the delivery target no longer disappears mid-quest
  • In Chapter 3’s Dance with the Devil, destroying totems now reliably lowers the totem count

The patch also adds extra guidance prompts in places where the game previously expected players to read its mind, which, as usual, is not a strong system.

UI changes that are actually useful

The user interface gets a meaningful set of updates, including a way to lock the minimap so north stays at the top. For players who prefer fixed orientation, this is the sort of change that feels overdue by several lifetimes.

Other UI improvements include:

  • Icons now show the locations of keys and anvils on the minimap
  • Quest and challenge progress can be checked more easily, along with reward details and timestamps
  • The notification storage cap has been increased to 2,000
  • The Journal now shows an icon for new quests
  • Faction facilities appear on the minimap whenever their liberation gauge is visible
  • Main-screen notifications have clearer timing and display behavior
  • The Knowledge menu can show main categories and subcategories together
  • The inventory now defaults to Use All for pouch-type items
  • PlayStation and Xbox stick button icons have been updated
  • General UI text is brighter and easier to read

Graphics, performance, and PS5 4K support

Visual stability has been improved in low-resolution and upscaling scenarios, and translucent materials like hair, fur, and clothing should look better when using FSR-RR or DLSS-RR.

On PS5, the patch adds a new Fixed 4K Output setting. When enabled, the game outputs at 4K even if the display is not a native 4K panel, with Performance Mode supporting FSR upscaling. The option is on by default, though players can disable it if they want the game to match their monitor’s maximum supported resolution instead.

Long sessions should no longer cause screen noise to build up, and a DLSS-RR issue that affected displacement mapping has been corrected. The DLSS-RR preset has also changed from D to E, which improves image quality and fixes a bug where texture animations such as waterfalls could stop moving.

Performance and stability changes round out the section:

  • Loading times are shorter when traveling through Abyss Traces
  • Respawn loading times have been reduced
  • Stability and crash issues have been fixed across PC, console, and Mac
  • A frame drop problem during the Crowcaller boss fight has been corrected

Localization, crime system tweaks, and other fixes

The patch also resolves a UI problem where current quest objectives showed the wrong item descriptions. Alongside that, various translation and wording issues have been cleaned up across supported languages.

The crime system has been adjusted too. Criminal acts no longer lower Contribution before an NPC actually witnesses them. That means fewer accidental penalties for things nobody saw happen, which is a refreshing amount of common sense.

Additional crime-related fixes include:

  • Attacking NPCs with trees now properly counts as a crime
  • Greeting people with a low bounty should no longer accidentally register as criminal behavior

Pearl Abyss also fixed a long list of smaller issues, including:

  • Resting and waiting at beds and campfires now work consistently
  • Damiane and Oongka no longer vanish in certain situations
  • Banked money no longer disappears in specific interest refresh edge cases
  • Cows behave better during herding
  • Animals now have new sound effects when eating meat
  • Bow aiming, housing mode dragging, shallow-water falls, quick-slot gear swapping, and overlapping UI elements have been fixed
  • The Blinding Flash Finisher no longer launches players off cliff edges

That is a lot of ground for one patch, but Crimson Desert 1.01.00 is clearly aiming to smooth out systems across the board rather than just ticking one box and calling it a day.