Crimson Desert quietly came out of nowhere last year and became one of the most hyped games of 2026. Developed by Pearl Abyss, the massive, open-world, single-player fantasy RPG has been a big hit on Steam and PlayStation 5.
Sure, it might have some wonky controls, AI-generated art, and a messy questline that was added late in development, but that hasnât stopped players from spending hundreds of hours in Crimson Desertâs photorealistic-looking world. It also helps that Pearl Abyss has been relentless with patches and fixes. Nearly every few days, it seems to add new features and skills, fix bugs, or tweak settings based on player feedback. Now, nearly a month after launching on April 19, Crimson Desert is in a better spot than it was at launch, and could end up being one of the biggest games of the year.
Early Crimson Desert reviews werenât great
âFeels like a game designed for people who just want to Consume Content,â wrote Bloombergâs Jason Schreier on Bluesky the day before the game launched, as written reactions went live across multiple sites. Many critics found the RPG to be incredibly large and gorgeous, and not much more than that. Polygonâs impressions at that point featured the title: âAfter 10 hours, Crimson Desertâs massive open world hasnât shown me a single interesting thing.â Ouch.
At launch, the game landed at 78 on Metacritic, which is a perfectly solid number, but felt like a misfire for Crimson Desert after all the months of endless hype-building. It wasnât all bad, however, as some reviewers celebrated the gameâs combat and others, like Paul Tassi, even praised Crimson Desert extensively. However, even the most positive reviews and impressions complained about the gameâs wonky and often clunky controls.
Mixed reactions led to the studioâs stock plummeting
As mixed reviews and negative early player feedback rolled in around Crimson Desertâs launch, the reaction seemingly spooked Pearl Abyss investors in a big way. Within 24 hours of launch, the studioâs stock price slipped by nearly 30 percent, going from 65,600 KRW (South Korean won) down to 46,000 KRW. Even as players who loved the RPG tried to defend it from negative and lukewarm reviews, it seemed investors werenât convinced that the much-hyped game would pay off in the long run.
Everybody agreed that Crimson Desertâs controls are bad
The one thing that nearly every critic, player, and fan seemed to agree on after Crimson Desertâs release was that its controls were, at best, funky and, at worst, nearly unusable. One of the many Reddit posts criticizing the gameâs controls was titled: âWorst controls Iâve ever seen in a game. For real for real.â
As someone who played Crimson Desert before all the patches, I was shocked by how unresponsive movement was, how clunky menu navigation felt, and how nearly every part of the RPG was overly complicated. Picking up anything sucked. Running around felt awful. Using powers and different inventory items was a mess. It was all pretty bad. Not surprisingly, Pearl Abyss promised to improve the controls in future updates.
But at least the cats are awesome
In Crimson Desert, you can pick up any cat you spot in the world, carry it around in your arms, and pet it gently as you mosey around. As you can imagine, the cat-loving internet highly approved of this feature. Bad controls, bland storytelling, and performance issues be damned, you can pet and pick up kitties.
âI got to the first town, and was walking around greeting everyone, noticed the village cat,â reads one review on Steam. âUpon trying to pet him, I picked him up and was able to walk around the village with him in my arms, while petting him and completing my tasks. This game is great, highly recommend.â
Less awesome: Players found AI art in Crimson Desert
It only took about a day for players to start finding what looked a lot like AI-generated artwork inside Crimson Desert. Players spotted ugly paintings that featured nonsensical imagery and looked crafted by a machine with no soul or care. And it turns out, the bad art was made by an AI. But the devs claimed it was just temp art that had been left in the game by accident, and it would all be removed in future updates. Hmm.
This led to a delightful trend of devs on social media posting all the silly and terrible temp art that they had included in past games during development, all of which was created without using controversial AI tools and was designed to call attention to itself as much as possible, precisely so it wouldnât accidentally be left in a game at launch.
Crimson Desert got three patches in its first week
In the four days after Crimson Desert launched, the RPG received three patches. These patches tried to fix up the bad controls while fixing bugs and implementing some quality-of-life changes. This was just the beginning of Pearl Abyssâ aggressive patching of Crimson Desert, something that is still happening a month later as the studio keeps trying to use player feedback to help improve the game.
The gameâs Steam player rating improved a lot following updates
All this work by Pearl Abyss seemingly paid off as Crimson Desertâs player rating on Steam increased greatly after a rough start. At launch, the massive RPG struggled to receive positive reviews on Valveâs popular PC storefront.
As reported by Forbes, it initially was hovering around 51 percent, or âmixed,â on Steam. But four days and a few updates later, it skyrocketed to 80 percent of user reviews being positive. As of April 17, it now sits at an even more impressive 86 percent positive, which lines up closer to all the pre-launch hype.
Kotakuâs impressions praise the visuals, but not much else
After playing about 12 hours of Crimson Desert, I tapped out. While updates helped make it a bit less of a slog to play, I just found the world to be a boring, empty landscape, and none of the quests hooked me. I fully admit that perhaps if I put in 30 more hours, I might find a more enjoyable game buried in Crimson Desertâs gorgeously rendered world, but there are too many other games I want to play instead of investing more time into something and hoping it eventually gets better. But hey, those rocks sure are prettyâŠ
Players keep finding cool details and sharing them online
Even if I didnât enjoy Crimson Desert, I can still be impressed by all the incredible details people have found inside this big RPG. For example, did you know you can cook raw meat using the power of the sun? Yeah. Wild stuff.
Crimson Desert could arrive on Switch 2âŠone day
Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young told investors and stockholders during a meeting in March that, yes, the studio is looking into porting Crimson Desert to Nintendoâs Switch 2. But it sounds far off, and if it does happen, expect a stripped-down experience.
âSince the Switch still has lower specifications compared to other consoles,â said the CEO, âthere are aspects we have to give up on. Internally, we have taken an interest and have started R&D.â
Players who have played a lot and killed everything ask the devs for stuff to kill
Play Crimson Desert for long enough, and youâll eventually reach a point where youâll have killed most of the gameâs enemies, wiped out its bandit camps, and cleared out every large fort. That happened to Paul Tassi at Forbes, and itâs also happened to others, according to Reddit posts online.
âEven bandit camps stay empty once cleared out. Patrols thin out greatly once the peaceful factions take over. I played for six hours yesterday and had TWO fights in total. TWO. And they took less than 10 seconds, because I basically one- or two-shot them all,â complained a player on Reddit. Many players hope Pearl Abyss adds an option to have more of the gameâs enemies respawn, like in other open-world RPGs such as Skyrim.
Considering how dedicated the studio is to adding stuff based on player feedback, it seems likely that respawning bandit camps and more will one day be a feature in Crimson Desert.Â
Crimson Desert has sold 5+ million copies
According to Pearl Abyss, as of April 15, Crimson Desert has sold over five million copies. The studio posted the good news online and thanked players for all the support and help. In an industry that seems to struggle with launching new, successful games, Crimson Desert seems like a bit of a miracle.
âThank you to every Greymane who has joined us on this journey, experienced the world of Pywel, and supported the game,â said the studio on Twitter. âReaching this milestone would not have been possible without your support, and we are truly grateful.â
