Abyss Without Balance is an early-game quest in Crimson Desert, but it seemingly has a bug that stops you from progressing.
Around one to two hours into Crimson Desert, you’ll take on a quest called Abyss Without Balance. This starts out as a fairly normal quest that sees you unlock your first Sky Bridge and Abyss Artifact as well as your wings, which let you fly. However, if you’re like me, then you might have run into a seemingly impossible bug during the middle of Abyss Without Balance.
For whatever reason, even if you reload a save, you can’t progress the quest, as you need a specific tutorial to pop up that you’re required to observe. For anyone in this boat, fear not, as you’re actually not encountering a bug. Check out the guide below to see how to fix this issue with Abyss Without Balance.
Solving the bug in Abyss Without Balance in Crimson Desert
The main crux of this “bug” is that you need to move an Abyss Cell onto a wall and then use the “Force Palm” skill to attach the cell to the wall. This powers up the middle platform and allows you to complete the quest.
However, even if you made it to the point with the Abyss Cell and you’ve tried attaching it to the intended wall, the tutorial to observe the Force Palm skill never appears. You’re supposed to see a cutscene of another player using Force Palm on the cell to attach it to the wall, but that never happens. I spent dozens of minutes rotating the cell, reloading my save, and trying everything possible to get the Force Palm skill tutorial to appear, but no dice.
Then, I realized my problem. When you first approach the Abyss Nexus area after going across the entire Sky Bridge, you’ll see an objective in white text at the bottom of your screen. It says to “Step onto the platform.” This is accompanied by the objective on the left side of your screen that says “Activate the Abyss Nexus.”
This platform is actually at the top of the area before you head down to the Abyss Nexus area with the blue cubes and the cells. You need to step on this platform, as shown below, and wait for it to light up blue.
Once that happens, you’ll get a new objective that says to “Remove the wall blocking the floor.” You can now progress with moving the blue cube to its rightful location by using Axiom Force. The location is right on the blank stone cube on the right side of the Abyss Nexus area.
This allows you to enter the bottom pit, where you can observe the Force Palm skill tutorial on the blank cell wall. Go up to the cutscene, observe it using LB/L1, and then you can use Axiom Force to move the floating Abyss Cell to the wall. Once the cell is in position, use your new Force Palm skill by holding RB/R1 near the cell, and then let go of the button to attach the cell to the wall.
Once the cell is successfully attached and the middle platform lights up and starts spinning, climb up to the top of the pit, go to the large orange wheel that overlooks the pit, and climb up to the center.
As you’re hanging on to the wheel, use Force Palm again, and you’ll be blown off the wheel. Head back to the wheel to collect your Abyss Artifact, and let the quest play out and complete from there.
Congratulations, you’ve solved the “bug” with Abyss Without Balance and completed a tricky quest in Crimson Desert.