Crimson Desert DLC Unlock Requirements: What to Finish First

The prerequisite row finally has an answer

Our Charting the Unknown price and contents guide includes a ledger of what Pearl Abyss had not said. One row read "Story or level prerequisite: Not published." On October 20, 2026 at 23:00 UTC, Pearl Abyss published a first answer in its "Charting the Unknown DLC Features Overview" notice, under the heading "Content Overview & Prerequisites." The DLC then launched on October 29, 2026 at 22:00 UTC, and the 2.04.00 patch notes (notice 140) restate most of the gates, with some changes. This guide now tracks both documents and flags where they differ.

The gates fall into three tiers. Diving needs nothing. The ocean quest, ships and the new housing need Chapter 3 progress and camp work. The character quests, both castles and the boss gauntlet wait until you have completed "Journey's End" from the main story.

Steam's global achievement stats, read on October 23 (before launch), show how that lands. 58.4% of Steam players had Master Camper, whose description is "Complete the activation of the camp at Howling Hill." 10.7% had Expert Storyteller: "Complete all main quests." Both figures count Steam accounts, not saves, and do not separate active players from lapsed ones, and they have not been re-read since launch. On those numbers, a majority of Steam players had passed the Chapter 3 camp gate and roughly nine in ten had not reached the ending tier.

Every gate, feature by feature

The middle column quotes or closely paraphrases the two Pearl Abyss documents: the October 20 preview and the 2.04.00 launch notes. The right-hand column places each gate in the base game, with its source named in the sections below.

The Chapter 3 tier: camp first, then Luke

The ocean story. Pearl Abyss puts "Howling Hill" in quotation marks and calls it part of "the main story." Game8's chapter list has Chapter 3: Howling Hill. Neither Game8 nor Fextralife's main-quest list has a quest by that name, so read the gate as "finish Chapter 3." The launch notes add a second condition the preview did not state: the quest "A Wider World" starts after Howling Hill and after you expand your Greymane camp above a certain level. No level is given. Our chapters guide covers what else that chapter hands you.

The camp. The October 20 preview says the ship-building questline opens "after you have set up your Greymane Camp at Howling Hill." Fextralife's Howling Hill page says the camp is set up there as a reward for beating the Hornsplitter, and Steam's Master Camper achievement fires when its activation is complete. If your housing never unlocked when you raised the camp banner, check your version. Patch 2.02.00 on September 11 fixed housing not becoming available "when raising the banner at Howling Hill Camp while the inventory was full." The base game is now on 2.04.00 with hotfixes through 2.04.05, posted between October 29 and November 1.

Luke's Request. This gate is a faction quest, not a story beat, and Fextralife files faction quests as optional. Its quest page lists Luke's Request as a Greymanes quest at Howling Hill. It opens after Secure Resources: Luke asks you to place a flower basket in the old house on the hill. The reward is a Medium Bag, 50 Greymane Contribution EXP and 50 Trust with Luke. Fextralife notes that "you need to use Kliff to progress this Faction Quest," and Pearl Abyss's own Known Issues notice backs up the warning: its September 21 revision lists "Greymane faction quests cannot be progressed while playing as Damiane or Oongka." That notice has not been re-read since launch, so check the current Known Issues list, and switch to Kliff before you start. The full walkthrough of that quest and of decoration mode is in our housing guide.

The launch notes confirm the gate: the upgraded system is available by completing Luke's Request, one of the Greymane faction quests under "Grounds of the Sunrise," and after setting up the camp in Howling Hill. You then build your layout under Home Decoration > Layout > Free Construction. The October 20 preview said finishing Luke's Request gives "access to both the regular and upgraded housing system," so the old decoration mode is not replaced. And per Fextralife, Luke's Request is the quest that unlocks Expanding the Camp, which matters for the camp-level gate above.

Two ways to get a ship

Both Pearl Abyss documents give two routes:

• Build one through a dispatch mission. The preview says you send comrades on a ship-building dispatch mission "at a port."
• Buy one. The launch notes say ships can be purchased from fleetmasters located throughout Pywel. The preview called this a "Fleet Office manager."

Ship customization parts are sold by fleetmasters in Demeniss and Delesyia, and ships can be used for maritime trading. The first route draws on the same comrades as the rest of your camp's dispatch economy. Our comrades guide covers recruiting more Greymanes. Neither document says how many comrades the mission takes, what it costs, or which ports offer it.

The Journey's End tier: what waits for the ending

These features carry an end-of-campaign gate in the launch notes:

• One new quest each for Kliff, Oongka and Damiane. The launch notes say they appear in the Journal menu "after completing 'Journey's End' from the main story." The preview had called them storylines.
• Two decorable castles. The October 20 preview said "three specific castles are available for you to claim." The 2.04.00 launch notes say "Added two castles that you can decorate" and name them: Drakesfall Castle, awarded after completing "Journey's End" and liberating the stronghold, and Flame Knight's Castle, awarded after completing Damiane's quest "Politician" and liberating the stronghold. The notes list no third castle, so the preview's count of three has not been matched in the launch build. Our Re-blockade guide covers how stronghold liberation works.
• Garden of Trials, available after completing "Journey's End" (below).

If your save is mid-campaign, none of these is waiting for you yet. Hotfix 2.04.05 (notice 149) also fixed an issue where Damiane's exclusive quest "End and Beginning" could not be progressed if "Journey's End" was completed within a certain timeframe, so make sure you are on the current patch.

What counts as finishing the main story

The preview used three phrasings: "completing the main story," "complete the main story" and "clearing the main questline." The launch notes settle the wording: they name "Journey's End" each time. Crimson Desert's ending has two steps, and that name is the Epilogue's.

Steam's Expert Storyteller is described as "Complete all main quests." Console Pulse's Epilogue walkthrough says the achievement pops at A New Beginning. That is the first of eight quests in Epilogue: Journey's End, and seven farewell quests are still open when it appears. The launch notes say "completing 'Journey's End'" and do not say whether that means the chapter's last quest or its first, so we have not confirmed which one flips the gate.

The safe read is to clear all eight Epilogue quests before you go looking for a castle. If the gate turns out to be A New Beginning, you have lost nothing.

One more thing the notes do not cover is new games. Since 2.00.00, a finished save can carry Abyss Links and other currency into a new one (our Abyss Link guide has the details). Nothing in the notices says that carry-over also carries the DLC's story gate, so plan on a fresh save needing its own run to the ending. The launch notes add that save files created while the DLC is installed cannot be loaded, or used for cross-save, in a game version that does not include the DLC.

Garden of Trials pays where Rematch does not

The preview called Garden of Trials "a new combat-focused content where you face off against bosses you've encountered throughout your adventures in Pywel, one after another," and said "completing this challenge will grant you special rewards." The launch notes add detail: it has 10 groups to challenge, you can enter alone or with a comrade, and you can field up to three characters (Kliff, Oongka and Damiane) in an order you choose. If a character is defeated, the next one steps in. Food cannot be used for recovery inside. Completing each group enhances one of your existing skills. The Garden is located near the Axiom Archive Abyss.

That is the opposite of the existing system. Rematch, added in 1.05.00, has its rule in the patch notes: "no separate loot can be obtained," and our Rematch guide found no patch through 2.03.02 that changed it. A gauntlet that pays out is new. The launch notes also say some of the DLC's new bosses are available for rematch using Memory Fragments.

One wording match is worth noting without reading too much into it. Pearl Abyss's June 2 roadmap promised "a new combat-focused content" letting players "prove their true strength as a Greymane," with no name attached. The October 20 preview used the same phrasing for Garden of Trials, but filed it under Charting the Unknown. Pearl Abyss has not said whether they are the same item, or whether players who don't buy the DLC get any version of it.

Diving needs nothing but breath

Diving is the one feature the preview explicitly calls ungated. Per the preview, Kliff, Oongka and Damiane can all dive, and below the waves you find "ruins, treasure chests, and new creatures and mounts." The launch notes add a breath gauge: a higher breath capacity means a longer stay underwater, and you raise the maximum by refining your diving suit. There are also food items that temporarily restore breath, equipment that lets the A.T.A.G operate underwater, and new underwater mounts that you subdue or feed to raise their Trust.

That line touches the pre-order bonus. Pre-orders came with the Charter's Diving Set for Kliff and Oongka and the Charter's Light Diving Set for Damiane, and Pearl Abyss's DLC page and pre-order notice did not say whether those sets do anything. Neither the preview nor the launch notes mention the Charter's sets, so we have not confirmed what they do.

Romance, camp visits and rented businesses

Romance is confirmed and now detailed. The launch notes add an extra level of "Trust." Choose "Interact" > "Flirt," then "Gift" or "Chat," to keep raising it; each interaction type can raise it once a day. When it reaches 100 you can propose. Flirting with an NPC as one playable character lowers that NPC's trust with the other two. Some NPCs have special conditions, and for the witches the notes say to complete each witch's sanctum quest. After marriage your spouse's icon appears on the map, you can travel together, and you can change your spouse's appearance at barber shops. You can also break up, at a cost. The notes list 17 residences that can be built through dispatch missions, and your spouse lives in the one you designate.

That settles one open question from September. Our regional restriction explainer covered one outlet's theory that a romance system was why the DLC was pulled from storefronts in the UAE, at a time when no romance system had been announced. The romance system now exists in Pearl Abyss's own notices. The reason for the regional restriction still does not: neither the launch notes nor the market-availability notices we read give one.

Festivals and camp visits. The preview said friends may visit once the camp is "upgraded to a certain level." The launch notes describe the mechanism: a mission lets you hold a limited-time festival at camp, and NPCs you have reached a certain trust level with attend. Talking to them at a festival builds trust faster, and certain visitors can be hired as "Honorary Greymanes" for dispatch missions, though some features are unavailable to them. The camp level is still not given. The camp-growth loop is in our camp guide.

Management. The preview said you can "rent and manage different businesses, from a restaurant in Vellua to a smithy at Zargan Tankworks." The launch notes describe it as renting a liberated stronghold to run a restaurant, sawmill, smithy or tailor's shop, with a "Facilities" tab on the map. Facilities keep operating while you are away, and special guests may visit. Vellua is the coastal village south of Hernand that the Fextralife and Fandom wikis both describe as famous for its fish. The gate is two-part: the faction quest that liberates the region, and a finished camp setup.

Twitch Drops: the two-week window

A notice posted October 22 at 02:30 UTC and revised October 30 announces a two-week Twitch Drops event that began with the DLC. The rewards include "various equipment, a pet, and customizable parts for your ship." The ownership rule matters: Week 1 rewards can be claimed and used by anyone who owns Crimson Desert Enhanced, while Week 2 rewards can only be used by DLC owners. The October 30 revision adds a warning: rewards can't currently be claimed from the Drops & Rewards menu. Until that is resolved, click Claim in the stream chat, then link your Twitch account on the Drops event page.

Go by the UTC line. The revised notice still gives Week 1's Pacific end as "November 5, 15:59 PT," but 23:59 UTC on November 4 is 15:59 PST on November 4, because US daylight time ends on November 1. The CET and KST lines agree with UTC, and so does Week 2's Pacific start of November 4 at 16:00. Only the Week 1 Pacific end does not, so a Pacific viewer who saves Week 1 for November 5 would find it already over.

What the notice still does not give is the split: which week pays the pet and which pays the ship parts. The image embedded in the notice, placed right after the reward line, still returned an access error (HTTP 403) when we loaded it on November 1. The notice's button now reads "View Event Page" without the earlier "(Coming Soon)" label, but the event page itself did not render readable text for us. If you have the base game but not the DLC, Week 1 is the half you can use.

When it unlocked

One global moment: 22:00 UTC on Thursday, October 29, 2026. Pearl Abyss's launch notice (143) is stamped with that time, and the 2.04.00 notes show the patch available on Steam (PC and Mac), PlayStation, Xbox and the Epic Games Store, with the Mac App Store version following later.

Pearl Abyss's notices list Europe, North America and Asia; the UK row is converted from UTC. The notices disagreed on one label. The revised pre-order notice and the Twitch Drops notice printed CET, while the September 30 date notice and the October 20 Features Overview printed "23:00 (CEST)." European summer time ended on Sunday, October 25, so CET was correct. The instant is the same either way.

Storage. Steam's system requirements, read on October 23 before launch, listed 50 GB of available space for Charting the Unknown and 180 GB for Crimson Desert Enhanced, on both Windows and macOS. The DLC's listing did not say whether its 50 GB comes on top of the base game's figure, and we have not re-read it since launch. The 2.04.00 notes say Steam (Mac) and Mac App Store players need a one-time full-size download because of changes to the Mac build. Console storefronts were not checked for this post.

What I could not verify

• Where "Journey's End" flips the gate: at Expert Storyteller's A New Beginning, or only after all eight Epilogue quests.
• Whether a third castle exists. The preview said three; the 2.04.00 notes name two, Drakesfall Castle and Flame Knight's Castle. We have not checked whether a later patch adds another, or whether Re-blockade can retake a claimed castle.
• Ship details: the comrade count and cost of the dispatch mission, which ports run it, and which gate (camp setup or camp level) governs the ship-building questline.
• Camp level: what level "A Wider World" and festival visits require.
• Which regions host rentable facilities beyond Vellua and Zargan Tankworks.
• What the Charter's Diving Sets do.
• The Twitch Drops reward split between Week 1 and Week 2.
• Whether the DLC's 50 GB on Steam is in addition to the base game's 180 GB, and what the console download sizes are.

Quick Action Checklist

• Patch. The base game is on 2.04.00 with hotfixes through 2.04.05 (October 29 to November 1). If housing never unlocked after you raised the camp banner, 2.02.00 fixed the full-inventory cause.
• Finish Chapter 3 and expand your camp for the "A Wider World" ocean quest. The launch notes name both conditions.
• Do Luke's Request as Kliff. It needs Secure Resources first, and it is the gate for the upgraded housing.
• Recruit Greymanes. One of the two ship routes is a dispatch mission, and fleetmasters sell ships and parts.
• Push camp expansions. The ocean quest and festivals need a camp level Pearl Abyss has not named.
• Liberate strongholds if you want to rent facilities there, such as the Vellua restaurant.
• Complete "Journey's End," Epilogue included, before you look for Drakesfall Castle, the three character quests or the Garden of Trials. Flame Knight's Castle also needs Damiane's quest "Politician."
• Don't wait to dive. There is no gate, but breath runs out, so refine your diving suit.
• Twitch Drops run to November 11. Week 1 ends at 23:59 UTC on November 4 and works without the DLC. Week 2 needs it. If the Drops menu won't claim, click Claim in stream chat.
• Check your drive. The DLC's Steam storage figure, read October 23, was 50 GB, and the base game's listing said 180 GB.