Crimson Desert’s Kliff Actor Says the Story Changed Repeatedly During Development

Alec Newman, the actor behind Kliff in Crimson Desert, has offered one of the clearest public windows yet into the game’s turbulent narrative development, describing the project as a “roller coaster” across roughly 5 years of recording work. The comments came during the March 29 episode of Friends Per Second, where Newman appeared as a guest in a segment focused on Crimson Desert and its reception.

According to reporting on the interview, Newman said the experience felt very different from his previous game work and that the project’s story direction shifted repeatedly during production. He described it as feeling like “making a TV series” where the focus kept moving, which lines up with one of the biggest criticisms surrounding Crimson Desert since launch: that its world and systems feel stronger than its actual narrative throughline.

One of the more striking details is how long Newman says he remained unclear on the real scale of the project. The Friends Per Second episode confirms the interview was published on March 29, 2026, and later coverage of his remarks says he spent around the first year and a half thinking the work was only for a demo, only to later be told the team would now start recording “in earnest.” That kind of prolonged uncertainty is unusual even in an industry where actors are often kept in the dark for confidentiality reasons.

Newman also reportedly confirmed that Kliff was originally named MacDuff during development, reinforcing claims that the game’s narrative and character framework changed substantially over time. GameSpot’s summary of the interview notes that Crimson Desert itself went through a broader identity shift as well, starting life as a prequel to Black Desert Online before becoming the single player open world action RPG that finally shipped.

Those comments matter more because they do not exist in isolation. Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin young recently admitted to shareholders that the game’s story was lacking and said, in effect, that the studio wishes it had handled the narrative better. Reporting on that meeting says Pearl Abyss prioritized finishing and polishing gameplay, while future updates are expected to focus on gameplay improvements rather than expanding or reworking the story.

Taken together, Newman’s interview and Heo’s public remarks paint a fairly consistent picture. Crimson Desert appears to have been a project where the core gameplay, scale, and open world fantasy became the main pillars, while the narrative kept evolving late enough that even the lead actor felt he was chasing a moving target. That does not make the final game a failure, especially given its strong commercial start, but it does help explain why many players and critics seem to admire the world more than the writing. That final point is an inference based on Newman’s interview reporting and Heo Jin young’s shareholder remarks.

For players, this kind of behind the scenes insight is revealing because it highlights how even visually spectacular, technically ambitious open world games can still struggle if the narrative center is not locked early enough. Crimson Desert may still win people over with its scale, freedom, and sandbox appeal, but Newman’s comments suggest that its uneven story was not an accident. It was the product of a development process that kept shifting where the emotional focus was supposed to land.

What do you think matters more in a game like Crimson Desert, a strong central story, or a huge open world that still feels exciting to explore even when the narrative stumbles?