Crimson Desert Review

When Fallout 76 released in October 2018, I played it for maybe 20 hours the first week or two of launch. Most of my Destiny friends got the game because we were all fans of Bethesda’s work and could enjoy one of its worlds together.

Time so often being currency, I ran out early on. For me, there wasn’t enough meat on the bone at launch and at its heart, Fallout 76 was still a Bethesda game peppered with problems and issues that would likely be patched over the coming weeks or months. And I had done this dance before, with Destiny and The Division and would with Anthem a few months later. Did I really want to invest my time in another game that begged me to return daily with the same humdrum tasks?

Seven years later, I returned to Fallout 76. I chuckled the first time I installed the 100gb game and looked at my save file gathering digital dust. Months prior I had attended a preview of the game’s upcoming content drop, Burning Springs, which added a new area to the game. But a friend drew me back in because it was a game we could mutually play together and have fun in. And then two others joined in.

Now, I have over 300 hours in Fallout 76. A couple weeks ago my squad accomplished the feverish feat of beating every encounter in the game’s sole raid 76 times so we could emblazon our profile with a unique naming suffix that only a small base of players have. And yet, Fallout 76 is still a game with a frustrating amount of problems. No native PlayStation 5/Xbox Series version exists. Load times can be brutal. Freezes and crashes haunt me. Any number of bugs serve to frustrate, confound, or potentially aid. Yet for hundreds of hours we still played a game almost a decade old that very much feels that way but has added a wealth of content, making it an easier sell to consume ad nauseam.

Pearl Abyss will doubtfully spend the next seven years updating Crimson Desert. But in the past month, the developer has transformed its gargantuan open-world RPG with surgical precision and shocking frequency.

Before Crimson Desert launched on March 19th, 2026, it was being touted as the Next Big Thing. Your new obsession. The most intricate RPG in ages. An experience only matched by the likes of Skyrim, The Witcher 3, or Baldur’s Gate 3. Early footage gave the impression that players would be tossed into one of gaming’s biggest sandboxes and given countless tools to stomp around it in.

After playing Crimson Desert and falling down its numerous rabbit holes, that sentiment remains strong a little over a month out of launch. But by god has it been a fascinating process watching the world come to terms with this game.

Video games thrive and thrill when they offer players unprecedented ways to express control and agency of the world and the story. Role-playing games have become so beloved because we often want to escape the horror of existence and reside in the safety of digital confines, where there are less rules and significantly more opportunities.

Despite Morrowind and Oblivion being released in years past, Skyrim exploded on to the scene at the perfect time. Players were captivated by the ability to become almost anything they wanted in Tamriel. The main quest could be followed or one could be distracted by a curious cave that would lead to new discoveries and quests that provided hours of entertainment. Become a sneaky sniper with a bow and arrow. Blend spells as a mage. Or craft to your heart’s content.

The unparalleled freedom allowed players to often ignore the buggy nature inherent with Bethesda titles. Instead, personal anecdotes were posted across burgeoning social media platforms. Blogs and websites dedicated days over coverage to the game in hopes of milking SEO buzz for clicks. Most of us would look back on Skyrim with fondness, regardless of its aged structure and sometimes wooden characters. And to this day, the high it provided is chased by countless players.

Crimson Desert is very much in the vein of The Witcher 3. Player expression is communicated through the gameplay and how one interacts with the world. Protagonist Kliff, much like Witcher Geralt, is not a custom character but still used as a vessel of making choices and imprinting morality on the world. CD Projekt Red opted out of a blank slate character creator but still provided an unheard of amount of depth to all types of quests, from the smallest of buried treasures to region-defining life and death. I put over 200 hours into The Witcher 3 and never finished the main quest. After about 100 hours, I put the game down for a couple weeks and came back to a game altered and improved by a number of quality of life updates meant to make the experience more palatable.

An argument could be made for players to bide their time and wait another month or two on purchasing Crimson Desert. Considering it sold 5 million copies in under a month, many couldn’t resist the temptation. And honestly, it’s absolutely fair.

The first day I played Crimson Desert, I was delightfully overwhelmed. Zooming out of the map and soaking up the unknown fog of Pywel and what possibilities were in store was a feeling I’ve not had in quite some time. Bolstered by the number of reviews claiming Pearl Abyss had given players a deluge of content and ways to approach the world, how could one not salivate just a little? Massive open-world games have proven to be a boon to players over the years. Often enough they can be packed with diminishing returns and middling quality and players may still embrace the sheer glut of content to justify the entry fee.

Pearl Abyss didn’t seem to be content with making yet another medieval-adjacent fantasy open world, though. And I think it’s the stranger content and context that intrigued everyone in the months and weeks leading up to launch. What do you mean there are jetpacks and mechanical dragons and floating islands in the sky? There’s no way, right?

And when Crimson Desert launched, the consensus seemed to be that for some, the game was a jack of all trades but could flail a bit when working to excel at any particular quality. Honestly, that is a justifiable concern when a game is so pronounced in its scope and vision. For a sizable portion of the gaming audience, Crimson Desert is simply going to be too much game. It is one of those titles that could be pecked away at like a ravenous vulture over the course of weeks and months. A busy mom or dad could likely make this their singular game for the year and knead a steady drip feed of content and entertainment out of it, each new evening bringing an hour or two of satisfaction.

The opposite also applies, however. In my freshman year of college, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas consumed me and my roommate for an entire January. A one-class mini-semester enabled us a wealth of time to take turns leveling up CJ’s stats and wreaking havoc in what was likely one of the biggest games to exist in 2005. Would you have given me Crimson Desert back then, it may have taken me the entire school year to finish, with some clean up to do in the opening weeks of summer break.

Yes, Crimson Desert struggles to do everything right.

One of the biggest sore points for most is going to be the narrative throughline across the journey. The catalyst for the story is a sudden attack on Kliff and his group called the Greymanes. In a vicious battle their rival group the Black Bears kill numerous Greymanes and seemingly kill Kliff, only to have him be resuscitated by the powers of the mysterious Abyss. While Kliff’s central focus is reuniting the Greymanes and seeking revenge, he becomes tangled up in the forces of the Abyss where ancient powers are working to keep the balance of the world together.

In a game packed with countless denizens and points of interest, Crimson Desert offers a plethora of stories both big and small for the player to tackle. Many of us will ultimately become distracted by one thread or another, finding intrigue with a citizen in need, plowing through bounties, or reliving the past via a strange looking helmet.

Pearl Abyss has injected so many things into its game to entertain the player and it’s no surprise that some of these moments stand taller than others. But I do think that the main plot could have been stronger. Kliff stumbles a bit primarily because he is a pre-made character. We can’t mold Kliff into anything other than what he is, at least in the confines of the story. This can work in a game like Horizon: Zero Dawn or Ghost of Yotei when the protagonist is expertly strong. But Kliff’s gruff warrior type isn’t necessarily the vehicle that everyone wants, at least not without being able to choose his appearance and gender.

By having so much for the player to encounter and interact with, it’s kind of a misstep for Pearl Abyss not to have simply given players the option to also have that wealth of possibility with their hero. However, it likely did enable the developer to cut down on some aspects of the game, including variations quests and the main story could take.

While Crimson Desert‘s main story and lead may not set as high of a bar, Pearl Abyss does give players an unprecedented sandbox to accomplish their goals with. Suffice it to say, Crimson Desert is one of the most intricate games I’ve ever played. It does not reach the levels of a Baldur’s Gate 3 but it honestly feels as if everything was thought of. Players have a finite pool of skills and abilities they will be able to use and acquire over time but the way the world can be interacted with and approached is shocking.

Since the game’s release, I’ve seen dozens of videos of players toying with Pywel and showing just how far Pearl Abyss took their engine and their ideas. Most of these things I would have never seen myself otherwise. NPCs will fully build statues out of rock if you stand there long enough. Trees can be slingshotted off of to speed through the world. Magic light can be used to cook food instantly. It feels like Breath of the Wild where the limits are almost what the player can think of. There is a true sense of Pywel being this living, breathing world where almost anyone can be spoken to.

This freedom and depth is part of the reason why it’s so easy to be distracted in Crimson Desert and become a rudderless adventurer who is up for anything the moment it comes to them.

Personally, I think games can be as big as they want to be. What matters most is the quality of content. Quantity doesn’t matter if it isn’t fun to play and like many open-world games, Crimson Desert has varying degrees of quality. But it’s the fact that the game can be approached in so many different ways that amplifies what’s provided.

Combat is primarily a blend of weapon-based skills and a suite of magical skills that Kliff acquires over time. Surprisingly, the vast array of boss fights is one of Crimson Desert‘s high points. Whether it is against a ridiculous humanoid enemy or a towering beast, I found these fights to be incredibly challenging and often spectacles that one often only gets in narrative-driven games or a Souls game. Often, killing a boss will unlock a new power that Kliff can use, forgoing the need to spend Abyss Artifacts to unlock them.

Numerous intricate puzzles are to be found in the game as well and often, they can be confounding head scratchers. Part of this is because they are meant to be solved in a specific way and the player has so many options and skills to use, it isn’t always understood what the game is asking of you. I will admit to having looked up solutions online, even when the game telegraphed what I was supposed to do–and that applied to one of the earliest moments puzzles in the game where I had limited abilities to use.

Kliff is capable of wielding fantastical magic powers in the game, pulling from the Abyss to aid him in his journey. But the heaviness of combat is what draws me towards it. When I told one of my friend’s that Kliff often acts like a wrestler, capable of clotheslining or performing a Stone Cold Stunner, he was sold. There’s a raw nature to the bloody stakes in the world but much like anything, it can be a puzzle. Enemies shooting at you from a tower can often be countered by having that tower destroyed. Find brush to set ablaze and watch a camp be wiped out in an instance. Literally throw a tree into a foe and feel like a god. Pearl Abyss wants the player to be able to do these viral experiments themselves and feel the satisfaction of it.

In the vast ocean of Crimson Desert‘s offerings, players will find themselves reminiscing about moments and anecdotes that thrilled them to no end. And it’s inside the breathtaking, beautiful world of Pywel that it is all possible. Honestly, Crimson Desert is one of the few games that has ever made me wish I had a top-of-the-line PC. But on my base PlayStation 5, I’m taken aback by what Pearl Abyss was able to accomplish.

At launch, it was a stunning game with an incredible draw distance that floored me hour after hour. As the game has been patched to be more stable, it has only gotten better. Sprawling medieval cities give way to the natural beauty of the continent. The dizzying stone and magic constructs of the floating world above dazzle, especially when players know they can skydive back down to earth with minimal technical voodoo to mask loading times. The fact that Crimson Desert runs as well as it does, is a testament to whatever work Pearl Abyss has done on their proprietary engine over the years.

But the biggest elephant in the room in dealing with Crimson Abyss is what will the game be like next week, or the week after?

Since launch, Pearl Abyss has released a number of patches and updates for Crimson Desert that have altered the game in one way or another. During the period before the game’s launch, the game was updated behind the scenes a few times to grant more inventory space and improve performance and address a few concerns. Since then, more fast travel points have been added, many bosses can be fought again, difficulty levels have been added, puzzle get more guidance, there’s storage at the camp, the menus have been cleaned up. It goes on and on and on.

At this point, some players are asking for a pre-patched version of some features, including the fluid difficulty where some fights merely had to be returned to when Kliff had become stronger. You see, when Crimson Desert launched, it did things a lot differently by design. NPCs and things to interact with could require the player to hold down a button and then press another button to engage. Movement didn’t feel like it did in similar games. Some would describe it as clunky or obtuse or over-designed. Personally, I thought it was kind of cool.

Crimson Desert very much comes across as a single-player MMO where the player is given a universe of tasks and things to do. But instead of a world flowing with other players, it’s just you. Man, I would love co-op in Crimson Desert just because there is some stuff that would be fantastic to experience with others. But that’s not necessarily what kind of game it is. And because of that, it was designed a little “weird” or, simply, unique. I get why it rubbed some the wrong way and why certain aspects of it need to be altered.

Yet Crimson Desert had this magic to it at launch where the player and Kliff were these unwieldy beasts trying to tackle Pywel. After Kliff’s resurrection, the player was almost acclimating to this new world with fresh eyes. Trying to understand what made the game click was part of its discovery, prohibitive or not.

Because Pearl Abyss has worked to grow and update the game with the community, it has led to Crimson Desert being an overall better game. More fast travel points in a game of this size is absolutely necessary. Being able to encounter bosses again? Oh hell yeah. More pets? Well that’s just fun. More importantly, it shows a developer that has been distinctly quick on addressing concerns and wanting to make Crimson Desert the best it could be.

And it’s this constant ebb and flow that I think players should use to gauge where they stand with Crimson Desert. In its earliest version, I think the game was fascinating, if not flawed. The breadth and depth of content on-hand was staggering, engaging, and impressive. One element that isn’t going to change is the core narrative. The stories found inside the game are written and, more than likely, will not change. Despite Kliff’s journey not being as strong as I would want it, it doesn’t hold back the best moments of the what I’ve encountered in the narrative and the stories I’ve made for myself.

Things like combat and puzzles can be massaged in a few ways but Pearl Abyss at this point can only make them better from a technical level without implementing new systems and abilities. The world can improve drastically both in terms of content and technical quality but that’s adding onto something that is already bursting at the seams with quality and possibility.

Right now Crimson Desert doesn’t feel like it’s in flux. If anything, the game was already relatively stable and Pearl Abyss is refining it for the wider audience. There is a danger in trying to smooth out every edge and commodify every aspect of the game to make it palatable for the mass audience. I think players who have been in this journey since the beginning are justified in their desire to have a version of Crimson Desert where different things across patches can be toggled on and off. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pearl Abyss does that as well. There was something unique about the game not having a set difficulty level and spaced-out fast travel points that made Pywel feel more dangerous and brutal, requiring more survival on the part of the player. But I can also see why players would want to dial the difficulty and the friction down and merely enjoy the vast expanse of what Crimson Desert has to offer.

Crimson Desert is almost impossible not to recommend in its past, present, or future state for anyone who has a fondness for open-world games. There are numerous ways myself or others could add or subtract to make it the most ideal personal RPG. But because Pearl Abyss has provided us with so many tools already, it’s hard not to appreciate and soak up the boundless freedom provided here. I’m absolutely curious what it will look like in the fall after months of tinkering have settled in. Maybe co-op will get added, maybe it will just be more pets. Either way, it’s hard to deny the resounding success Crimson Desert is right now.