- Crimson desert Actor Alec Newman says Pearl Abyss kept changing the game’s story throughout development
- Newman says he kept having to push “about the story and the character as much as I could”
- He suggests the studio “kept changing the goalpost” and even changed Kliff’s name
Alec Newman, the voice behind Crimson desert‘s protagonist, Kliff, has revealed that he had to keep pushing Pearl Abyss to get clarity on the game’s story and his character over the years of development.
In an interview on the Friends Per Second Podcast, Newman discussed the game at length, saying he worked on it “on and off” for five years while “recording different iterations of this character at different stages of development.”
“Almost two years into recording, they kind of said, ‘Well, we’re really going to start recording now.’ And I said, ‘What the hell do you mean? We’ve been doing this forever!'” Newman exclaimed.
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A seasoned actor in the industry, Newman is also known for his role as Adam Smasher in Cyberpunk 2077but he said Crimson desert was very different because Pearl Abyss would continually change things throughout development.
“I wouldn’t say they kept changing the goalpost, but we started by shooting with maps from the different parts of Pywel,” Newman said. “You know, different characters and he’s from this faction and he’s from that faction. And I kept going, ‘Yeah, but what’s going on?’
The actor also revealed that Kliff was originally named Macduff during 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 significant amount of time into shooting this, when they settled on Kliff, I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing the story and the character as much as I could,” he said.
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Newman also touched on the game’s open world and the aspects of gameplay that attracted players, adding that there were stages in the game’s writing process where Pearl Abyss kept “shifting focus”.
“I’ll be honest, I felt the pressure of 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 the reviews of the game that have come out. You can tell when you talk to people. I talked to some people today who actually play it and love it. And while they love some of the voice acting and the characterization, the strength of this game is definitely the size of the open world. And the fact that you can pick up a cat.
“It’s to do with, I feel, 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 shifting the focus. And actually, it’s no secret. If you look at the way Crimson Desert came about, they moved things around.”
Crimson desert‘s story has also been criticized since release, because while the action and open-world splendor have drawn players in for hours, the story-driven adventure lacks the depth some expected. 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 bring something back together” were also undefined in early development, and there was a “bridging point” two and a half years later when Pearl Abyss wanted that story aspect to really resonate.
“After a while, you know, there’s only so far you can go with him [Kliff] kind of a being… not flat, but kind of stoic,” Newman said. “Now I know, as a Scot myself, I know what that means. But it’s very, very hard to play 150 hours with someone who never gives anything away. So what’s been rewarding is that as people have played through more than 100 hours, they’ve found pieces of Kliff that sometimes talk about something more emotional.
“The whole Greymanes thing, after about two and a half years, they decided they really wanted it to resonate. This idea of family and trying to bring something back together. I think that’s the main story of the game, or the only story line of the game when you start it.
“And that was the tipping point. I wouldn’t say they started panicking, but they said, “Oh yeah, we really want this. We really want Kliff to care about his buddies.” And I said, ‘Well, he does, but you didn’t write that monologue.’ So we brought it in gradually and where we could we took care of it. Wherever we got something that could be a little humorous, we tried to bring it out.
“But I have to be honest, those moments were fewer than they could have been.”
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