Black Desert, previous game from Crimson Desert devs, is free to play this weekend

The Crimson Desert hype train is in full force ahead of its launch on March 19. Before the RPG arrives, though, you can check out developer Pearl Abyss’ previous game for free. For a limited time, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X owners can play Black Desert free of charge.

Black Desert is an expansive MMO with a variety of gameplay mechanics. You can relax with farming, fishing, cooking, horse training, and more professions. For something a little more fast-paced, Black Desert offers hack-and-slash combat as well as large-scale, siege-based PvP wars.

Despite the similarities in titles, Black Desert and Crimson Desert aren’t wholly connected — though that wasn’t always the case. Crimson Desert began development as a prequel to the Black Desert MMO before developer Pearl Abyss shifted gears and worked Crimson Desert into its own IP and into a single-player game. By all accounts, Crimson Desert is an expansive game, with prospective players trying to find things they won’t be able to do in the game ahead of its release. What it will have is the ability to speed through cutscenes, because our attention spans are borked.

If you want to smooth over the wait for Crimson Desert, you can try out Black Desert for free this weekend. The PS5 version’s trial will be playable through March 8, and PlayStation Plus will not be required to play it. Xbox players will have a little longer — it will be free to play until March 9.