Last updated: 2 November 2026

Crimson Desert Charting the Unknown DLC Guide

Crimson Desert's first paid expansion, Charting the Unknown, launched on October 29, 2026 for $24.99 (£19.99 in the UK, €24.99 in the EU) on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, bundled into patch 2.04.00. It opens Pywel onto the ocean: a new ship mount for sailing to uncharted islands, underwater diving with a breath gauge, an expanded housing system with free-form construction, stronghold facility management, and a new high-level combat challenge called Garden of Trials. You need the base game and story progress: "Journey's End" unlocks the new character quests and Garden of Trials, "Howling Hill" plus a bigger Greymane camp starts the ocean quest, and the Greymane quest "Luke's Request" opens Free Construction housing.

01Charting the Unknown at a Glance

The confirmed facts, from Pearl Abyss's own patch notes and the Steam store listing:

• Release date: October 29, 2026, shipped as part of patch 2.04.00 for Crimson Desert Enhanced.
• Price: $24.99 in the US, £19.99 in the UK, and €24.99 in the Eurozone.
• Platforms: PC (Steam and Epic Games Store), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. Mac (Steam and the Mac App Store) also received it, though the patch required a one-time full-size redownload of the game due to changes in the Mac build.
• Requires: the base game, Crimson Desert Enhanced — Charting the Unknown is a paid expansion, not a standalone release.
• Story: adds one new individual quest each for Kliff, Oongka, and Damiane, continuing their arcs beyond the main story's "Journey's End," plus a new ocean-focused quest, "A Wider World."
• Headline additions: ships as a new traversal mount, underwater diving and exploration, an expanded housing system, stronghold facility management, a marriage/relationship overhaul, and a new combat gauntlet, Garden of Trials.

Pearl Abyss shipped several hotfixes in the days after launch (patches 2.04.02 through 2.04.05) covering crash and quest-progression fixes — update to the latest version before playing, since the developer has said the base game and DLC content are only guaranteed to work together on the current patch.

02How to Start Charting the Unknown

Charting the Unknown doesn't open the moment you install it — it's gated behind story progress:

1. Complete the main-story quest "Journey's End."
2. Open the Journal menu — one new individual quest each for Kliff, Oongka, and Damiane now appears there.
3. To reach the ocean content specifically, also complete the main-story quest "Howling Hill" and expand your Greymane camp above a certain level. Doing so starts "A Wider World," the quest that opens up ship travel and diving.
4. To reach the expanded housing system, complete "Luke's Request" (a Greymane Faction quest under "Grounds of the Sunrise") after setting up your camp in Howling Hill. The upgraded housing tools are then available under Home Decoration > Layout > Free Construction.

If you're missing any of these prerequisite quests, finish the base game's main story first — Charting the Unknown's content is additive to the ending, not a separate branch you can jump into early.

03Ocean Exploration: Ships and Diving

Ships are added as a new mount type. You can get one by completing a dispatch mission to have it constructed, or by buying one outright from a fleetmaster — fleetmasters are based in Demeniss and Delesyia, and also sell the parts used to customize a ship you already own. Ships let you sail to the DLC's new uncharted islands and are also used for maritime trading with new trade goods introduced alongside them.

Diving is built around a breath gauge: the longer your breath capacity, the longer you can stay underwater, and you can extend it by refining your diving suit. Food items that temporarily restore breath are available for longer dives, and equipping the A.T.A.G. lets it operate underwater as well. Underwater mounts can be subdued or fed to raise their Trust; once Trust is high enough, they can be registered as mounts like any other.

Underwater and across the new islands you'll find sunken ruins, hidden points of interest, and treasure maps that point to scattered hidden caches — exploring both counts toward the islands' own pioneering missions.

04Housing, Facilities, and Relationships

The expanded housing system adds Free Construction, letting you design a home's layout and place structural elements like walls and windows yourself, on top of the base game's existing housing mode. Two additional castles also become decoratable once you clear the story and faction milestones tied to them.

A new facility-management layer lets you rent liberated strongholds to run a restaurant, sawmill, smithy, or tailor's shop; the Facilities map tab tracks them, they keep producing rewards while you're away, and special guests can visit them while they're staffed. Camp festivals are a related addition — build enough Trust with an NPC and they'll visit your camp for a limited-time festival, and some visitors can be hired on afterward as Honorary Greymanes who can be sent on dispatch missions.

The marriage and relationship system got a notable overhaul: a new Flirt interaction raises an additional Trust track with NPCs, and reaching 100 on it lets you propose. Married spouses can have their appearance changed at a barber shop, show up on the map and travel with you, occasionally give gifts, and can be broken up with at a cost. Seventeen new residences were added for married couples to live in, and Demeniss and Delesyia also gained a new minigame, Banker's Dice.

05Garden of Trials and New Combat Content

Garden of Trials is a new combat gauntlet located near the Axiom Archive Abyss, unlocked after completing "Journey's End." It's built around 10 groups of enemies that you can challenge solo or with a comrade, using up to three characters — Kliff, Oongka, and Damiane — in an order you choose; if one character is defeated, the next in line continues the fight. Food items can't be used to recover inside it, and clearing each group permanently enhances one of your existing skills.

The DLC also adds several new bosses, some of which can be fought again later using Memory Fragments, along with new armor, weapons, mount and pet equipment, and Abyss gear to go with them. A new NPC, the Relic Collector, trades relics found while exploring for additional rewards.

06Troubleshooting and Save Compatibility

Update to the latest patch before launching the game — Pearl Abyss has said base-game and DLC content are only guaranteed to work correctly when both are current, and several of the post-launch hotfixes (2.04.03 through 2.04.05) specifically fixed quests that could get stuck mid-progression.

On Mac (Steam and the Mac App Store), the 2.04.00 patch required a one-time full-size redownload of the game rather than a small patch, due to technical changes made to the Mac build — expect that download the first time you update after the DLC's release if you haven't already.

Save files created while Charting the Unknown is installed can't be loaded, or used for cross-save, in a copy of the game that doesn't have the DLC installed. If you plan to play on a device or Game Pass-style install that might not always have the DLC, keep a separate save from before you installed it.