Crimson Desert Charting the Unknown DLC: Price and Contents

The price and the feature list both exist now

Nine days ago the honest answer to "what is the Crimson Desert DLC" was a shrug. Pearl Abyss teased it in a June dev update, told a July shareholder meeting it was being considered as paid content, and promised a clear answer inside Q3 — the full file on it is in our updates and roadmap guide, and until this month it fit in a paragraph.

The answer landed on September 3, and then the storefronts filled in the rest. Crimson Desert Enhanced: Charting the Unknown launches October 15, 2026, it is paid, it lists at $24.99 on Steam, and Pearl Abyss has published a feature page describing what is in it. That is a different situation from the one we were reporting a week ago, when price and scope were both open questions.

This post is the buyer's-side read: what it costs, what you need to own, when it unlocks in your time zone, what the four content pillars actually say, and the two pieces of fine print — a Mac gap and a regional pull — that are easy to miss because they sit at the bottom of a notice.

Everything below comes from Pearl Abyss's own notice board, its official DLC page, and the Steam listing, all checked on September 12, 2026. Nobody has played this. There is no review here and there cannot be one for another month.

What Charting the Unknown costs

Steam is the storefront whose price we read directly, so those are the figures quoted here. Regional pricing checked September 12, 2026:

For scale, Crimson Desert Enhanced itself lists at $69.99 on Steam. The DLC is priced at roughly a third of the base game.

We did not verify the PlayStation Store, Microsoft Store or Epic Games Store prices, so this post makes no claim about them. Check your own storefront before assuming parity.

What you need to own first

The Steam listing is explicit: the DLC requires the base game Crimson Desert Enhanced to play.

That sounds like a trap and is not one. Crimson Desert Enhanced is not a separate purchase — it is what the base game became when update 2.00.00 shipped on August 25, 2026. Pearl Abyss's own notice says the update is free to all existing owners on all platforms and is included automatically once you patch to 2.00.00. If you bought Crimson Desert at any point since the March 19 launch and you have patched, you own Crimson Desert Enhanced. Nothing to re-buy.

What you should do before October is patch. The base game is on 2.02.00 as of September 11, 2026, which among other things finally added cross-save on Mac. If your install has been sitting untouched since spring, you are also missing the per-character skill rebuild that 2.00.00 brought in — the arithmetic of that is in the Abyss Link and skill reset guide.

One hardware note for PC buyers: the DLC's Steam page lists 150 GB of storage in its system requirements, and repeats the base game's Denuvo Anti-tamper DRM with a five-machine-per-day activation limit. Do not read that 150 GB as headroom you need to clear for the DLC — Crimson Desert Enhanced's own Steam listing states the same 150 GB, minimum and recommended, on both Windows and macOS. The DLC page is inheriting the base game's figure. Pearl Abyss has published no separate download or install size for Charting the Unknown. Full requirements, and what actually runs the game well, are in our system requirements guide.

When it unlocks where you are

Pearl Abyss published regional unlock times with the pre-order notice. They all resolve to the same instant — 22:00 UTC on October 15, 2026 — so this is a single global unlock rather than a staggered regional rollout.

The notice gives three rows: Europe, North America and Asia. The UK line below is that same instant converted, and the conversion matters — British Summer Time does not end until October 25, so the UK is on UTC+1 on launch night.

Pre-orders opened earlier, and staggered: the notice says PlayStation Store went first at 15:00 UTC on September 3, with Steam, the Epic Games Store and the Microsoft Store following at 21:00 UTC the same day.

What is actually in it

Pearl Abyss's DLC page organises the expansion into four pillars, and the Steam description carries the same copy. Here is each one, plus what it does and does not commit to.

The ocean is the headline

The DLC extends the map past Pywel's coastline. Pearl Abyss says you take command of a ship, sail out to new islands off the coast, and dive beneath the surface to find underwater treasure, sunken ruins and hidden mysteries.

Two things are worth separating. Ship command and island exploration are stated plainly — that is a traversal system the base game does not have, and the promotional art shows a multi-masted, square-rigged sailing ship under way rather than a scripted boat ride. Diving is stated just as plainly, and the pre-order bonus being a diving set for all three characters is a second, independent signal that underwater movement is a real mode rather than a cutscene.

What is not stated: whether the ocean is a new region bolted to the existing map or a separate space, how big it is, whether ship combat exists, or whether the sailing has any progression attached. The Pywel exploration guide covers the five land regions as they stand; how the sea connects to them is unknown.

New enemies on land and at sea

Pearl Abyss promises formidable foes across both land and sea, framed as the game's toughest fights yet, and says tactics will have to adapt.

That is marketing language and it is being treated as such here — no count, no names, no confirmation of whether these are world bosses, rematchable Abyss encounters, or story-locked fights. What the art shows is a large mechanical quadruped firing a beam weapon in a desert canyon, which at minimum indicates a new enemy silhouette rather than a reskin. If you want the fights that exist today, they are in the bosses guide.

Facilities, housing and townsfolk

The quietest pillar and possibly the most consequential for anyone who plays Crimson Desert as an economy game. Three things are named: renting and managing facilities to earn money, an upgraded Housing mode for building a home, and talking with the people of Pywel to build deeper bonds.

Facility renting is a genuinely new verb. The current money loops are trade routes, dispatch and camp funds — covered in the trading guide and the camp guide — and none of them involve holding property that generates income. "Upgraded Housing mode" is the phrase to watch: housing already got a substantial pass in update 1.12.00, which added outdoor decorating, 58 house items and two crafting stations, and the current state of it is in the housing guide. What "upgraded" adds on top of that is not described.

Four new story threads

The narrative pitch names four hooks: an ominous presence in the desert, a dangerous political conflict, a journey beyond time, and an ancient secret beneath the waves. Kliff, Oongka and Damiane each get their own path forward.

Story was the consensus weak point in the game's reviews and the thing 2.00.00 already went back and reworked with new cutscenes. That all three playable characters are named here matters for anyone who has been waiting for Oongka and Damiane to stop being guest slots — a process that has been running through patches since 1.12.00.

No chapter count, no estimated length, and no statement about where in the campaign the DLC hooks in. If you are trying to plan a replay, the existing structure is broken down in the chapters and length guide.

The pre-order bonus is two diving sets

Pre-ordering gets the Charter's Diving Set for Kliff and Oongka, and the Charter's Light Diving Set for Damiane. Pearl Abyss labels these a DLC-exclusive pre-order bonus.

Pearl Abyss has not said what they do. Neither the notice, the DLC page nor the Steam listing calls them cosmetic or describes a stat effect, and in an expansion that is adding underwater movement, "diving set" could as easily be functional gear as an outfit — so treat that as unanswered rather than assuming. The precedent points at cosmetics: every pre-order and edition extra listed in the editions guide is cosmetic. That is a pattern, not a confirmation. Pearl Abyss has also not said whether the diving sets return in a later bundle, which is the same open question the Khaled Shield left behind at launch.

Some regions cannot buy it at all

This is the easiest line in the notice to miss, and it is the one that costs somebody money.

Pearl Abyss added an update to the pre-order notice stating that, following a review of content and age rating requirements, Charting the Unknown will not be available in certain markets and regions. Pre-orders in those regions are being closed. Depending on the platform, refunds may process automatically, or you may have to file a refund request through that storefront's normal process.

The notice does not name the markets. We are not going to guess at them, and neither should anyone else — if you pre-ordered and your order disappears, that notice is the explanation, and the refund path depends on which store you used. Check your order status rather than assuming it will sort itself out.

Mac is a split story

Two different Mac answers are in play, and conflating them is the easy mistake.

Mac App Store: Charting the Unknown will not be available there at launch. Pearl Abyss says a separate announcement will follow if it is planned for Mac later. This matches a pattern visible across the whole patch run — the Mac App Store build has repeatedly trailed the other storefronts, including on 2.02.00 this week.

Steam on Mac: supported. The DLC's Steam listing carries full macOS requirements — macOS 15.0 or later, Apple Silicon only, minimum M2 Pro / M3 / M4, recommended M3 Pro / M4 Pro / M5, 16 GB RAM, 150 GB storage. Steam also flags that the product is not compatible with Intel-based Macs.

So "is the DLC on Mac" has two answers depending on where you bought the game, and if you are on an Intel Mac the answer is no either way.

The AI disclosure on the Steam page

Worth flagging because of this game's history. The Steam listing for Charting the Unknown carries an AI-generated content disclosure, in which Pearl Abyss states that generative AI is used in a supplementary capacity while creating some 2D prop assets, and that any such assets are replaced by its art and development teams through the production pipeline before shipping.

That is a disclosure the developer wrote, published on the storefront page, and it is reproduced here as a fact about the listing — not as an accusation. It does connect to a real event: generative AI artwork was found in paintings and signs shortly after the March 19 launch, Pearl Abyss apologised and committed to an audit, and patch 1.01.00 replaced the affected assets. Readers who care about that should know the disclosure exists before they pre-order. Readers who do not, now have the accurate version rather than a headline.

What Pearl Abyss still has not said

The honest ledger, same as always:

Add to that the two items that were already open before this DLC: multiplayer remains a feasibility study with no mode or timeline, and the Switch 2 version is described as running at a basic-gameplay level with no window attached. Neither has moved.

Should you pre-order

A straight answer, with the reasoning attached rather than a vibe.

The case against is the usual one and it has not gotten weaker: nobody has played this, there are no reviews, and the only thing Pearl Abyss has attached to pre-ordering is two cosmetic diving outfits. If those outfits are not worth $24.99 of risk to you, waiting costs you nothing else.

The case for is narrower but real: Pearl Abyss's 2026 delivery record is checkable rather than vibes. Cross-save was announced June 2 and shipped July 16. The June roadmap's quality-of-life item landed as the 1.16.00 trading rebuild. The Enhanced update was delivered free to base game owners instead of being sold as a re-release. The DLC answer itself arrived inside the Q3 deadline the CEO set in July. That is a studio hitting the dates it names, which is not a guarantee about content quality but is evidence about follow-through.

Our take: there is no pre-order urgency here unless you specifically want the diving sets on day one. The thing worth doing before October 15 is patching to 2.02.00 and re-learning your skill tree, because that work exists whether or not you buy the DLC.

Quick Action Checklist

• Charting the Unknown launches October 15, 2026 at 22:00 UTC — 15:00 PT, 18:00 ET, 00:00 CEST on October 16, 07:00 KST/JST on October 16.
• Steam lists it at $24.99 USD / £19.99 / 24,99€. Console and Epic prices are not verified in this post — check your own storefront.
• It requires Crimson Desert Enhanced, which is what the free 2.00.00 update turned the base game into on August 25. You do not need to buy anything extra.
• Patch before launch. The base game is on 2.02.00 as of September 11, which added Mac cross-save.
• Pre-order bonus: Charter's Diving Set for Kliff and Oongka, Charter's Light Diving Set for Damiane. Pearl Abyss has not said whether they are cosmetic or functional.
• Confirmed content: ship sailing and new islands, underwater diving and sunken ruins, new land and sea enemies, facility renting, an upgraded Housing mode, deeper NPC bonds, and four new story threads across all three characters.
• Not on the Mac App Store at launch. Steam on Mac is supported — macOS 15.0+, Apple Silicon only, no Intel Macs.
• Check your pre-order if you are outside the major markets. Pearl Abyss is closing pre-orders in unnamed regions after a content and age-rating review; refunds may be automatic or may need a request.
• The Steam page carries an AI-content disclosure covering supplementary use of generative AI on some 2D prop assets, replaced by artists before shipping.
• The 150 GB on the DLC's Steam requirements is the base game's number, listed identically on Crimson Desert Enhanced — not extra space for the DLC. No DLC install size has been published. Expect Denuvo with a five-machine-per-day activation limit on PC.