Since the release of "Red Desert", its open world sandbox freedom has become the focus of players' attention. Recently, some players discovered that the game allows characters to collide with and knock down child NPCs. This mechanism has sparked discussion in the community.
According to a post by Reddit user ok0513, the player character can hit the child NPC by sprinting, causing it to fall to the ground. The user described the experience as "like a tank hitting a squirrel," noting that this type of design is relatively rare in similar games.
Other discussion participants added that what makes Red Desert unique is the feedback mechanism of the game world - after such collisions occur, NPCs, including children, will yell abusive lines at the player character. It is worth noting that the development team limited aggressive behavior to pushing and knocking, and players cannot cause serious injury or death to children.
Even so, this mechanism still raises questions from the outside world. Usually game developers avoid such designs and exclude children from the game world completely (for example, "Red Dead Redemption 2" only has one child character in the plot). Red Desert's ability to allow physical collisions (even if not fatal) makes it particularly unique among most modern AAA games, which may expose the game to more scrutiny from critics and rights protection groups. Red Desert has previously been criticized for allowing players to violently attack female characters.
"Red Desert" is developed by Pearl Abyss and will be released on PC and console platforms on March 19. Previously, the game has received feedback from players due to issues such as operation design, screen performance, and the ability to attack female characters. The developer has confirmed that it will fix the operational issues and said it will continue to provide post-launch support.
As of now, Pearl Abyss has not yet made an official response to discussions related to the interaction mechanism of children's NPCs.