Crimson Desert Ocean Mounts and Hidden Encounters

Crimson Desert’s Charting the Unknown DLC fills the ocean with wildlife, underwater mounts and optional encounters. The Great Rocky Reef is a useful place to search for sharks and orcas, while remote islands and ocean quests lead to bosses and equipment rewards.

This guide covers worthwhile places to explore, useful creature abilities and encounters to watch for while travelling above and below the surface.

For another hidden reward to collect, our Lumen Sword location guide explains how to find the glowing pink weapon inside underwater ruins.

The Great Rocky Reef is a useful area to search if you want more underwater mounts. Standard sharks can be found throughout the ocean, while hammerhead sharks and orcas are worth looking for farther from the mainland.

Hammerheads can travel in groups, which makes taming one more difficult. Clear the other hostile sharks while keeping your intended mount alive, then attempt to tame it once you can approach without being attacked.

Orcas can also be tamed and registered as mounts. Search around the reef for these larger creatures if you want an alternative to riding a shark.

For the basic taming process and help preparing for longer dives, check our Crimson Desert underwater exploration guide.

Some sea creatures provide useful abilities that can help during underwater exploration.

• Turtles have a barrier ability.
• Sunfish can replenish your oxygen.
• Manta rays have an area knockback ability that staggers nearby enemies.

These abilities give you reasons to interact with wildlife beyond simply moving through the water. A sunfish can help extend a dive, while the turtle and manta ray abilities offer defensive options.

Check the available interactions when you encounter a creature. The benefits differ between species, so the nearest animal may offer something useful even if you already have a preferred mount.

The Great Rocky Reef is also home to a Megalodon, an enormous shark that provides an optional underwater combat encounter.

It is much tougher than the ordinary sharks you encounter while exploring. Defeating it rewards a large amount of fish fillet, making it another encounter to investigate while searching the reef.

The Megalodon is not confirmed as a tameable mount, so do not assume it can be registered in the same way as a standard shark.

Continue the ocean quests after completing A Wider World. A follow-up faction quest in Delesyia directs you towards Samora Island, where the Dancing Catfish pirates occupy a stronghold.

Clear the outpost and continue the island’s quests. You will learn about a missing serpent’s relic and be asked to recover it. Following this objective leads to the arrival of an ancient creature and a major ocean boss encounter.

The fight places more emphasis on solving its mechanics than simply dealing damage. Pay attention to glowing objects and possible interactions when working out how to progress.

Completing the encounter awards:

• 20 relics
• An Abyss Artifact

If you have not reached the ocean questline yet, our Crimson Desert ship guide explains how to get started with ships and island exploration.

Look towards the far southwest of the ocean for two islands positioned close together. Both contain optional encounters worth investigating.

On the northern island, search for the bone nest at the location shown below. Defeating its optional boss rewards five relics and an Abyss Artifact.

On the southern island, head to the waterfall village. Liberating this settlement involves another optional boss, with rewards including:

• Five relics
• An Abyss Artifact
• The Satyros Spear

The spear contains Eclipsed Thorn, an Abyss Gear effect that adds a follow-up attack involving spheres of light.

These encounters give you additional objectives while exploring the southwestern ocean. Once you have collected their currency rewards, our Relic Exchange vendor guide shows where to spend your relics on equipment, blueprints and cosmetics.

Be careful when descending into very deep water. At depths beyond roughly 300 metres, you may encounter a warning telling you to turn back within 10 seconds.

If the warning appears, leave the restricted area immediately. Continuing past the boundary can trigger a cutscene in which a Kraken catches and consumes your character.

Treat the warning separately from your oxygen supply. Having air remaining does not mean it is safe to continue descending once the countdown begins.