Crimson Desert has been out for barely two weeks now, having launched on March 19 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, but the game is already toppling its own player count records. This is quite impressive, as Pearl Abyss’ latest action-adventure game is a single-player RPG that has steadily grown in popularity in terms of concurrent players as it’s moved away from launch, something you don’t see happen often with other big-budget, triple-A single-player RPGs.
Pulling the data from the game’s SteamDB page shows that it reached 239,045 players at launch, but crested 276,261 players on March 29. That means 10 days after launch, it’s seeing 40,000 more simultaneous players at its peak. This suggests that there’s not just continued interest in the South Korean studio’s high-fantasy action-adventure game, but that the single-player RPG is alive and well.
This isn’t necessarily unheard of, but it’s certainly something of an anomaly in the games industry as of late. You’d typically expect a multiplayer-focused game like Arc Raiders or Fortnite or Helldivers or Marathon to see a steady increase in players as time goes on. The single-player RPG, though, tends to decline in interest the longer the game is out. This has been true for games like Avowed, Baldur’s Gate 3, Black Myth: Wukong, Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, GTA 5, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, Nioh 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Starfield, and Wuchang: Fallen Feathers–all of which saw a drop in concurrent players the longer these games sat around. There are exceptions, such as The Witcher 3 and Where Winds Meet, that saw RPGs increase this concurrent peaks post-launch.
Of course, Crimson Desert’s numbers come from SteamDB, which tracks player data for just PC. The game’s concurrent player numbers are likely higher if you factor in PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, especially considering that it sold over 3 million copies just 24 hours after its March 19 global launch. Still, this points to the fact that, unlike single-player RPGs of years past, Crimson Desert is doing something quite uncommon for this genre: sustaining players in a way that reflects a multiplayer-focused game.
It’s a long game, one that could see existing players diving into it as new players begin their adventure. Pearl Abyss has been listening to and addressing player concerns since Crimson Desert dropped, with the team pushing out hotfixes and patch notes that refine and stabilize the game. Its recent update, patch version 1.01.00, speeds up fast travel while seemingly replacing AI assets.
The Witcher 3