Every Xbox player can play five hours of Crimson Desert Enhanced for free through early January, your progress carries over if you buy, and the big Charting the Unknown expansion adds the ocean, ships, romance and a boss rush.
If you’ve been sitting on the fence about Crimson Desert, Pearl Abyss just took the risk off the table. Alongside the October 29 launch of the Charting the Unknown DLC, the studio opened a free five-hour trial of Crimson Desert Enhanced for Xbox players, and on Xbox there’s no subscription required, per Pearl Abyss’s official notice and Xbox Wire.
Crimson Desert Is Free to Try on Xbox for 5 Hours, No Game Pass Needed, as Charting the Unknown DLC LaunchesThe free trial: what you need to know
- Who can play: “all players on Xbox,” per Pearl Abyss’s FAQ. No Game Pass or other membership needed.
- What you get: five hours of the Crimson Desert Enhanced base game. The trial does not include Charting the Unknown.
- One shot only: “The trial is limited to one use per account. Once you’ve played for 5 hours, it ends and can’t be restarted.”
- Your save carries over: “Your trial progress carries over to the full game when you purchase it.”
- Deadline: Pearl Abyss’s FAQ and the Xbox Wire summary say the Xbox trial runs through January 7, 2027. One line at the bottom of the Xbox Wire post says January 6, so don’t leave it to the last day.
Crimson Desert Is Free to Try on Xbox for 5 Hours, No Game Pass Needed, as Charting the Unknown DLC LaunchesHow to start it
- On your Xbox Series X|S, open the Store and search for “Crimson Desert Enhanced” (that exact version, per Pure Xbox).
- Choose the free trial option on the listing and download.
- Play your five hours. If you buy the full game ($69.99 on the Xbox Store listing on Xbox Wire when we checked), you pick up where you left off.
Why it’s called “Enhanced” now
Pearl Abyss released Patch 2.00 in August. Per Xbox Wire, that free update “added new story moments and expanded voice-over and language support,” and together with every post-launch update since the March launch, the game is now sold as Crimson Desert Enhanced. The store listing calls out new cutscenes, new mounts, pets, customization and quality-of-life fixes.
What’s in Charting the Unknown
The DLC is out now on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox on PC with Xbox Play Anywhere support, and it’s listed at $24.99 on the Xbox Store, per Pure Xbox. Here’s what Pearl Abyss says it adds:
- Three new storylines, one each for Kliff, Oongka and Damiane, after the fight for the Greymanes is over.
- Ocean exploration for the first time: dive underwater for ruins, treasure chests, new creatures and mounts, or build your own ship and sail the Great Ocean of Pywel.
- Relationships, romance and marriage: build trust with certain characters and it “may eventually blossom into romance and even marriage.”
- Upgraded housing: build a house from the ground up, down to walls and windows.
- Castles you liberate can become yours, with decorating, plus you can lease facilities like a restaurant or smithy and run them.
- Garden of Trials: a boss rush against the bosses you’ve fought across Pywel, one after another.
To start the DLC, Pearl Abyss says to buy it from the “Buy DLC” menu on the game’s title screen.
OnPoint’s take: This is how you do a trial. Five real hours, free for everybody on Xbox, and your save carries over, so it’s not some cut-down slice. Crimson Desert is exactly the kind of big, great-looking open world we love on Series X, and five hours is enough to know if the combat clicks for you. If it does, Charting the Unknown is a meaty reason to stick around, with ships, diving and a boss rush for $24.99. Grab the trial this weekend and let us know if it hooked you.
Sources
- Pearl Abyss: Charting the Unknown is Now Available (notice and trial FAQ) (Oct 29, 2026)
- Xbox Wire: The Journey of Crimson Desert Continues with Charting the Unknown (Oct 29, 2026)
- Xbox Store: Crimson Desert Enhanced
- Pure Xbox: Crimson Desert Enhanced Adds Surprise Free Trial For All Xbox Series X|S Owners (Oct 30, 2026)
- YouTube: Charting the Unknown launch trailer
Image: Pearl Abyss / OnPoint 4 Gamers
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