The underwater world of Black Desert is completely different from the surface mainland where you can easily run around and employ mounts such as horses. You might have to swim at a low speed, or dive into the depths to find hidden treasures.

Big and small rivers and lakes are everywhere in the world, and one thing that Adventurers exploring the endless ocean must know is how to skillfully move underwater.

How do you move if your ship is destroyed on the vast open sea?

If you use the Escape function found in the main menu (hotkey: Esc), you can move to the nearest safe point, but there is a long cooldown period to wait for using it again, and you cannot move to your preferred destination at will. In these situations, the only answer is to swim.

Movement speed on water is quite different from running on land. The character’s swimming speed is fundamentally affected by its overall movement speed. If you are preparing for long-distance swimming, we recommend increasing your movement speed. For example, you can transfuse a magical crystal that increases movement speed on Talis equipment pieces, which have movement speed increase set effects. If you reach level 5 of movement speed by doing this, it will be greatly beneficial for whenever you’re out at sea.

Remember that stamina is constantly consumed by swimming.
When stamina is exhausted, swimming speed slows down a lot, so if you come across an island or somewhere you can rest while swimming, it is good to recover stamina out of the water.

If there isn’t a place to rest outside of water, stop moving for a moment and press the key F. This will permit you to recover stamina, albeit slowly, while above water.

As seen above, if you stop moving for a moment and press the F key while swimming, you will be able to recover stamina slowly on the spot.

However, remember that you cannot change equipment while swimming. If you experience an unexpected accident such as falling off a liner, or the ship you were on got destroyed while on the move, you might not have the time to change into movement speed enhanced equipment, and might have to swim through the ocean at a slow speed. To avoid this, the game offers a rescue option outside of the Escape function from the main menu: the Old Moon Flare.

If you find yourself in a situation like the one described, please open the main menu (hotkey: Esc) and open the Pearl Shop, which you can also access via the key F3. Go to the Loyalties tab, and scroll down until you find the Old Moon Flare. Once found, purchase one with loyalties.
Using this item will call a rescue ship that will transport you to either Oquilla’s Eye or Lema Island.

If you dive underwater you will find another world full of adventures.

You can dive into the water by pressing the key Q and use the directional (WASD) keys.
Once underwater, you can rise to the surface with the directional keys or by keeping pressed the key E.

There is an important difference between swimming above water and diving underwater.
If you swim above water, only your stamina gauge decreases, and your movement speed is decreased. If you dive underwater, a blue gauge appears on the screen. This is the breath gauge that shows you how long you can be diving underwater.

When the breath gauge is exhausted, the character will stop moving, will squirm, and come above water automatically. It is important to constantly check the breath gauge when exploring underwater, lest you get stuck in an underwater cave and have trouble rising to the surface.

The breath gauge can’t be recovered underwater, but there are certain locations in the seafloor all across the waters near the continents that have air bubbles which will allow you to refill your breath gauge.

When you go above water, the breath gauge instantly recovers and lets you dive again.

As seen in the example above, when the breath gauge is exhausted the character will become unresponsive and rise to the water surface automatically.

Since there is a limit to how much time you can explore underwater due to the breath gauge, if you roam around aimlessly you will just repeat sinking and floating time and time again.

It is necessary to check the area that you want to explore by diving into a certain depth, and then moving to the point selected from above water. This way you will only need to dive the shortest distance possible between your location and your objective.

Additionally, there are various equipment items and consumables that can be employed to increase your underwater breathing time, such as elixirs and magic crystals.

Transfuse the magic crystal into an equipment piece, and drink the elixir, and you’ll be able to spend more time diving underwater.

* The content of the game guide may differ from the actual game content, depending on the update and content changes.