One of my favorite moments in my Land of the Morning Light preview gameplay was when my NPC companion, Dolswe, struggled to pronounce the names of places across the sea. Names like Magnus and Balenos were as foreign to him as the Yeongam of the East or Dokkaebi is to me. It was a fantastic in-game nod to one of the central concerns the Black Desert team had when approaching localization of this very Korean-centric region.
The Land of the Morning Light is the latest expansion coming to Black Desert Online. Releasing on June 14th, the upcoming expansion takes place in the titular Land of the Morning Light, an island off the coast of the main landmass of Black Desert’s world. Heavily inspired by Korea’s Joseon Dynasty era of history, the Land of the Morning Light is a very different place in Black Desert’s world.
Everywhere I turned felt like an intricate love letter to Korean culture and folklore. From the landscape and towns inspired by real locations in Korea right down to the depiction of the food NPCs ate, Joseon-era Korea is beautifully portrayed.
Wandering Port Nampo, I felt like a foreigner in a distant land. Indeed, that juxtaposition is everywhere, as Land of the Morning Light is a marked departure from the Eurocentric Medieval Fantasy of the rest of Black Desert. Talking with villagers only heightened this feeling, with their patterns of speech reminiscent of how older Koreans spoke as Pearl Abyss CEO Jeonghee Jin, or JJ, told me during a preview event last week.
“How the NPCs speak is different than regular NPCs in other regions,” JJ told me during a preview event at Pearl Abyss America’s Manhattan Beach office last week. “Because [Pearl Abyss Korea] really wanted to make it very close to the way the Old Korean people were speaking.” She compared this style of speech to how we Modern English speakers might feel when we hear Shakespeare - familiar, yet vastly different from our own speech patterns.
As different as it all feels initially, it definitely wasn’t off-putting. The chief concern that these very Korean ideas and words wouldn’t localize well into English feels like something of the past here, as leaving so many of the traditional Korean in the dialogue makes it feel more authentic and unique to Black Desert, and MMOs in general.
A Very Different Experience
It isn’t just the people and the way they speak that makes The Land of the Morning Light different from anything Black Desert has built in its eight years of operation. The new region itself looks and feels different than anything that has ever come before.
With over 80 cutscenes and 6000 recorded voice lines, Black Desert’s latest expansion aims to ramp up the storytelling. From the get go the cutscenes start, giving a more cinematic feel to the expansions opening moments.
After meeting up with a familiar face, Yeonhwa, at the harbor, we find that the goal of the Magnus Escapee is to help open up trade between the Land of the Morning Light with the rest of the Black Desert world. After going through an immigration checkpoint (reinforcing the fact that I am indeed a foreigner to this land), events take a turn that saw me falsely imprisoned under the watchful eye of Lee Duksoo, the Yeongam (or Governor) of the East.
However, with the help of Yeonhwa and Dolswe, I was soon on my way traveling the Land of the Morning Light itself, taking in the breathtaking landscapes for myself.
Visually, The Land of the Morning Light is stunning. Those opening moments as I stepped off the boat in Nampo Harbor and was greeted by a mix of wooden and stone buildings, architecture pulled from medieval Korea, is a striking difference compared to the stone and thatched roof buildings of Balenos. Exploring the island of Land of the Morning Light is a delight as well, as there is so much scenery to take in at every turn of the camera.
Oftentimes during my demo, I found myself turning off the HUD and just traveling the roads connecting the various villages and towns, watching cascading waterfalls in the distance or taking in the sights up close. The breathtaking Shimnidae Forest was easily one of my favorite locations in any game I’ve played recently, the large stalks of bamboo flanking the roadways as if standing vigil over the area with a verdant glow.
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What makes it feel different to explore, though, isn’t just the fantastic scenery, but the fact that I was able to explore it unmolested. Gone are the monster grinding spots from the rest of Black Desert’s world. Instead, progression is done through the story itself, a marked departure from the traditional BDO formula.
This does leave a lingering question in my mind, though: for new players, without those grind spots, how do you learn how to actually play your chosen character? Old veterans who are familiar with the combo system won’t find any trouble here, but for a brand-new player coming into the MMO, this might pose a problem.
Sure, Black Desert has an in-game demonstration, highlighting moves and showing how to do them, but it doesn’t replace that good old-fashioned feeling of getting your hands diary and doing it yourself. I felt this a bit myself when playing as my main class, the Lahn, wasn’t one of the premade classes I could choose from. Instead, I found myself spending time pouring over the skill lists, trying to learn how to play the Woosa on the fly without anything to really test myself against.
However, I do adore that Black Desert, eight years into operation, is taking such a risk. This fundamental change in how you experience The Land of the Morning Light feels like an extreme to one end, and I would have loved some monsters throughout the world instead of large swathes of them, but it’s an incredible change of pace overall.
Instead of being tasked with taking out monster after monster, leveling up through the grinding zones in between quests, The Land of the Morning Light instead invites the player to progress through the various Tales it has on offer, each with its own unique boss inspired by Korean folklore and myth. These stories are ones every Korean might know as well as we here in the West know Little Red Riding Hood or the Brothers Grimm stories. From the Dokkaebi king Dioksini to the Tale of the Songakshi, each of these tales play out as a full quest chain, culminating in a boss battle at the end.
They are lovingly crafted tales inspired by multiple folklores and I found myself eager to experience them. And, thankfully, there are things to kill in each of these questlines, from tasks that cause you to tackle enemies specifically brought in for the quest, to the boss itself at the end. Which was good because after playing for a bit without fighting anything, I was itching for some action.
Central to this new way of storytelling is the new player hub, Dalbeol Village. This new player hub is teeming with life and energy, as kids roam the streets playing games, NPCs haggle over prices in the farmer’s market, musicians play their instruments, and more.
Seriously, the central market was so busy it put my local Vegas farmer’s market to shame.
It’s here too that the amount of work the team at Pearl Abyss has done to create a convincing recreation of Joseon-era Korea comes to its height. The street food vendors are one thing, but seeing the traditional Korean food spread out for sale, or being chowed down on at Auntie’s tavern transported me back to the markets I walked down while in Busan in 2017, especially those outside the main city.
The vibrant clothes worn by the people also are a highlight, with the colorful traditional garb of medieval Korea on full display. The team at Pearl Abyss worked with local Korean government agencies to help bring this vision to life, right down to ensuring that the pottery found throughout the world was period-accurate. As a result, The Land of the Morning Light, and Dalbeol Village especially, felt like another world during another time. I was transported.
The Tale of Songakshi
Storytelling can transcend cultures and language, with universal themes everyone of all corners of the globe can relate to. The tales in Land of the Morning Light are heavily inspired by the stories and myths that many kids in Korea through the generations would have heard from their grandparents. Back at DICE, JJ told me that there was a concern about how very Korean phrases and terms like Dokkaebi would translate for the Western audience, a very real fear that it might simply be too foreign for Westerners.
However, the themes are universal: love and loss, life and death, longing and desire. These themes are found throughout storytelling here in the West, in the tales of Hans Christian Andersen, or The Brothers Grimm.
While these themes are universal, the stories told in The Land of the Morning Light are still distinct enough to be fascinating in their own right. During my preview, I took on the Tale of the Songakshi, a maiden who was killed before she could be wed to her betrothed. Her spirit lingers on the land as she searches for her beloved, not even realizing she is dead herself.
Starting a tale is as simple as going into the menu and opening up a new menu that is very much like an old Joseon storybook, each of the tales beautifully represented in period-style art. The tales themselves might seem like standalone quest chains, but the stories they wove were intertwined with characters I had already met in my short journey. They all play a part in the larger story that Pearl Abyss is telling here in The Land of the Morning Light, interconnected to that larger narrative hanging over the Land of the Morning Light.
It was here that the lack of grinding zones was most keenly felt. Instead of being required to kill X amount of monsters to progress quests, I instead was tasked with investigating the wraith, her motivations, her history, and more, all while helping the people around Dalbeol and the surrounding countryside.
I plucked rice from the field and chopped down trees for firewood. I collected charms I could use to help lull the Songakshi to sleep - it all felt like a traditional MMO quest chain in the best way possible. I didn’t find myself getting bored with the busy work - everything made sense as to why I was helping the people while investigating the Songakshi herself.
Sure, the old man Birigongdeok could have fetched his own food from the surrounding countryside, but then he couldn’t have made the charms I needed to help seal the Songakshi away. His wife, a Mudang witch aptly named Old Lady Birigongdeok also plays a major role in helping to uncover the Songakshi’s motivations, as well as helping to bring the story to its conclusion.
The story also took me all around the new region, from the Azaleas blooming near the coastline to the dark, eerie forest where the Dokkaebi live, it only served to heighten the beautiful visual storytelling going on with each pixel in The Land of the Morning Light.
It’s also in these tales where the new cutscene design is most keenly felt. Gone are the smash cuts or the fade-to-black transitions that can be jarring in previous Black Desert expansions, instead replaced by seamless transitions from cutscene to gameplay. It flowed right into the action so well that there was one fight against the Bari where I didn’t think the cutscene was over and I was waylaid by a ton of Servile Wraiths, rooting me in place.
Boss Blitz
While the boss fight in the actual tale I played didn’t pose much of a challenge, the new mode Boss Blitz does in a big way.
This is a global feature, where each of the difficulty levels (called Calamity levels in-game) are unlocked as players progress through each. As a player in a specific class downs a boss at a Calamity level, the next tier opens up for everyone in that class. It makes for a leaderboard that will be dynamic and foster competition among the player community to see who can get those world firsts.
Each boss is represented, allowing you to replay your favorite or seek a harder challenge on another. To augment the experience, as well as level the playing field between newer players who just started their character in The Land of the Morning Light and those seasoned adventurers looking for a challenge, a new system is in place to make the race to a world-first a bit fairer overall.
Instead of solely basing your stats on the equipment you bring to battle, Boss Blitz instead uses a new Light Orb system. These orbs are unlocked as you progress through the story tales in the expansion, and they play a huge role in tamping down the challenge in each Calamity level. As such, only 10% of your power will come from gear, the rest from these Light Orbs.
Each boss is weak to a specific Aura, from the Bamboo Legion having a weakness to Moon while the Dokkaebi King Dioksini weak to Sun. Only the Aura that the boss is vulnerable against will confer bonuses during battle, meaning you’ll want to slot your orbs there.
Slotting all my orbs into the Vulnerable aura, I took on my first boss in Boss Blitz only to realize that even here I was overpowered. The preview accounts had all the orbs you could earn unlocked, but not all of the difficulty levels, meaning that slotting everything would just tear through the lower difficulties.
So this final time I scaled back, slotting only a few that I felt I would have earned if I had just played the story naturally. Setting the Calamity level to three (five was the max in our preview), the fight got noticeably harder.
What makes these boss battles unique is that they bring whole new mechanics and fighting styles to Black Desert. While the Songakshi would port around the swampy battle area, firing projectiles and laying down AOEs attacks, the Bari fight is a whole different beast.
Bari uses the dead to her advantage, raising wraiths to fight alongside her. While a boss summoning adds is nothing new in an MMO, the sheer volume of them in this fight is daunting. Not only did I need to keep an eye on what Bari herself was doing as she ported around, chanting attacks in my direction, but a single hit from one of her wraiths would stun and root me in place.
It was frenetic, as I constantly tried to spam AOE attacks with my Maegu to overcome the wraiths that hounded me, all the while trying to locate exactly where Bari was. Tiny green globes would dot the landscape, giving me some health back, but even going out of my way to take one of those could leave me open to one of the Wraiths or the Bari herself.
The fight went up a notch when the other bosses in the expansion, from the Dioksini to the nine-tailed Fox Gumiho joined the fray, dealing damage and just adding to the spectacle. It was fun, even if I was killed right before I could knock the Bari down for the count myself.
This was the challenge I was looking for - and despite winning my first two boss blitz battles with ease, once I tamped down the Light Orbs to a more realistic level, the difficulty definitely ramped up. This was fun, fast-paced, keeping me on my toes throughout the last part of my preview time.
Lingering Concerns
While the takeaway from my preview is mostly positive, there are some issues that I see with The Land of the Morning Light, namely with new players.
One of the key points Pearl Abyss is making is that you can start Morning Light with a brand new character, jumping right in here instead of at the Stone Chamber or Eternal Winter starting points. This is great for those who might be picking up the MMO purely to experience this love letter to Korea and its culture, but it does seem a bit disjointed from the reasoning as to why existing players have to complete some prerequisites in order to travel to the new region.
For those players who have existing characters they want to bring, you’ll need to finish the most recent Magnus questline in order to have access to the expansion. The reason for this is because of a character you meet there who plays a major role in the Morning Light story. When speaking with Senior Live Ops Specialist Chris Lee during the event, that was a crucial bit, though it feels at odds with the fact that a brand new player can join in without ever having the backstory that the MMO is forcing onto veterans.
It makes some sense from a progression standpoint, as it is more a continuation of the story that Pearl Abyss has been telling to this point. But when the alternative is making a new character versus keeping up with the one I have played for a while just to experience the new story that other players can jump right into, it feels a bit odd.
Another chief concern I kept hearing throughout the marketing cycle was a fear that this wouldn’t localize well. I think for some the sheer amount of foreign words might be hard to track, but I loved the framing that I am a foreigner here. From uncovering the varied portrayals of the Gumiho fox to learning more about the mysterious Yoongi serpent that makes an appearance in the game world, I have been eager to explore my own Land of the Morning Light playground.
Though, I’ll also admit that your mileage might vary. As some might tire of hearing Shakespeare despite speaking English, this very different way the NPCs speak, as well as the intermingling of traditional Korean words and phrases around context that might not stick with some players could be frustrating and hard to take in large quantities.
However, I think the team at Pearl Abyss has done a tremendous job of localizing, making the new area feel simultaneously familiar and foreign. I felt like I had traveled abroad, and these same issues are something I’d have to overcome if I went to Korea proper, Europe and more.
All in all, I’ve been thinking about my time in The Land of the Morning Light constantly since the preview last Thursday. It’s definitely a love letter to Korea and its history, and something I’m looking forward to diving even further into when it launches on June 14th.
Full Disclosure: Travel and Accommodation to the event was provided by Pearl Abyss for the purposes of this preview.
