Crimson Desert Launches to Impressive Player Counts but Mixed Reviews

Crimson Desert is finally out, and while it’s already passed a major player milestone, its reviews leave something to be desired. It’s been a long road to this point, with Pearl Abyss delaying the game multiple times since its 2019 reveal and some fans getting upset about the lack of console footage until right before release. Now that Crimson Desert has officially launched, it’s found itself in an uncertain position.

Hype was high for the massive open-world game leading up to release, but things started looking a little shakier once reviews rolled in. As stock markets opened on March 19, Crimson Desert‘s reviews caused Pearl Abyss shares to drop by nearly 30% from the day prior. While critics had mostly positive things to say about the game, they didn’t shower it with as much praise as investors had hoped. The consensus was that Crimson Desert is a good game, but not an amazing one in everyone’s eyes, and now that players have gotten their hands on it, it seems they feel similar.

Crimson Desert Has One Rule You Need to Learn Early

Crimson Desert looks like a game you can rush through, but learning to slow down and explore its world is the key to avoiding its toughest roadblocks.

Crimson Desert Surpasses 230,000 Concurrent Players but Has Mixed Reviews

According to data from SteamDB, Crimson Desert hit a peak of 239,045 concurrent players on Steam just a couple of hours after its release. That may not be a big surprise, as Crimson Desert topped Steam charts before it was even out, but that financial success has not translated into a solid reputation among players. At the time of writing, the game is sitting at a “Mixed” rating on Steam, with over 11,000 reviews across all languages. Crimson Desert holds the number one spot on the platform’s Top Sellers list right now, and it’s just outside the top five most-played titles, but all those players can’t seem to agree on how good the game is.

Some players were already starting to feel skeptical about the game before its release. Just one week ahead of launch, Crimson Desert added the controversial Denuvo DRM anti-tampering software. While Pearl Abyss assured fans that the performance previews released before then already had Denuvo implemented, some PC players worried about the technology’s impact on how the game would run. However, Denuvo and Crimson Desert‘s technical performance have not proved to be the big problem among players. Rather, in line with many of the critic reviews that came out first, users have taken issue with the game’s UI and controls.

Reviewers say Crimson Desert‘s controls can be uncooperative and that its inventory system can be confusing and difficult to manage. Many of the player feedback on Steam echoes the same sentiment. In general, people like the vast open world and the game’s combat, but they are largely frustrated with the controls and interface. These common themes pop up in positive reviews of Crimson Desert, too, so players don’t necessarily agree on how severe these issues are, but there is a broad consensus that they do impact the overall experience. It’s also necessary to note that the game has been out for less than 24 hours at this point, so Crimson Desert‘s Steam rating could easily change in the coming days as people sink more hours into it. These reviews and player counts also only reflect Steam users, not anyone playing on Xbox or PS5.

It’s too early to say how much of an impact these issues will have on Crimson Desert going forward. Pearl Abyss could address players’ concerns in future updates, and as it does, fans may come back around to it. Plenty of games have survived bad launches in the past, including some that were met with much harsher criticism than Crimson Desert has seen so far, so nothing is set in stone.