Black Desert Online has one of the best combat systems to grace the MMO space and it almost makes BDO less of an MMO because of it but in a good way.

It’s not your usual cooldown driven, skill rotation-based system you might be familiar with. You need to deal with hitboxes and animation frames which is just as fun as the world is to explore. You gain skill points as you would just as you would in the real world, by actually fighting things. The more you skill and battle the more points you gain which can be used to upgrade skills and buy flow skills which improve your combos.

If you like to jump and running around the battlefield, firing spells or slashing daggers into the backs of enemies instead of standing in one place then BDO is probably for you. The combat is just fun throughout the game, killing 100’s of the same enemies over and over never gets boring as you can just mess around with your skills and see the amount of damage you can do.

It’s no surprise that being an MMO many gamers will flock to Black Desert Online to try out impressive action-packed, combo-punching combat and questing. They may come to the game to the game to wipe the floor with hordes and hordes of Steel Imps but many stays for the absolute freedom this game offers.

There’s plenty to do inside BDO which is away from the combat and questings. You can start up your own blacksmiths selling weapons to pashing adventurers or even get into horse breeding. Yes, that right – you can breed and sell horses as transportation for other players in the game if you fancy it, buy and sell on the marketplace like a stockbroker.

There’s also staffing you can do hiring NPC workers to set up trade routes between towns and do odd jobs for you. Building your own empire is where BDO shines outside of combat

Let’s just say it now, BDO is pretty – from the character models to the tress all the way down to the wildlife. Everything about the game is stunning and travelling throughout the world is more pleasant than many MMOs that have come before it.

The over bloomed high-fantasy style world might not be for everyone but Black Desert does have a nice wild west feel about it as well. With your transportation being linked to mounts – you have to actually travel around instead of jumping through an interdimensional portal.

One of the beauties of this is actually being forced to see the world makes you feel more a part of it. Plus, travelling sometimes sees the ugly side like being robbed by bandits…

Even on the regular PS4, the game looks amazing. So for a console game – Black Desert Online will be one you should like the look of.

Gaining resources is no small task in Black Desert Online for both the PC and for the console versions on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Some of the end game potions and food require some materials that can only be gained through getting them yourself.

You’ll need to correct tools for the job on your person, it’s not like other games were a pickaxe will magically appear for you to get the ore. You need one in your inventory before you even try but no need to worry as a lot of vendors sell them.

Then you’ll be ready to scavenge for ore, herbs, fishes and so many more things that you can turn into useable items for your character such as special armour or sell on the marketplace to make some cash.

Like combat, the more you gather, the higher your chances of getting rarer items for your efforts. If you combine this with daily missions you can get both contribution points and gathering experience at the same time.

One of the other things in BDO is hunting is hard but fun. You need to get your hands on a musket to start the profession and you can begin the daily hunting quests.

From there you can accept the quests and get going and there is something calming of tracking down your prey throughout the wilderness and taking it down. It’s not a full-on hunting sim but the rewards gained are a nice addition.

Don’t worry about being banned for botting – in BDO you can set up a path to follow and has a range of benefits.

The first benefit is your character’s stamina will go up which is good for combat and a number of other things. The other benefit is your character gets stronger by walking more distance in the game which in turn improves the carry weight your character has.

Finally, you can set up an Auto Loop when on a horse which helps level up your horse as they only get stronger by distance travelled.

It would not be an MMO if you could not get together with some pals and go defeat some gigantic monsters.

These elite monsters spawn every so often on each server and are tough to take down but reward those you get involved with great loot. Boss armour, Kzarka weapons and much more have a chance to drop helping buff your character up.

Even better, you can do it from the comfort of your own sofa now you can play with a controller on your PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.

Finally, the main reason to play Black Desert Online in the Open Beta running this week is you can sit back, relax and play with your PS4 Controller.

Gamepad support has been around on the PC for some time but with the official release of the title coming to consoles, playing the open beta has shown they’ve tweaked the game to make it even better. Skill wheels can be set up to quick access to help your combos or items and with the fluid combat analogue sticks just work.

Bonus point: you can now play a lot easier with your friends as let’s face it most of your mates probably own PlayStation or Xbox.