Pearl Abyss has revealed the performance presets and specifications for Crimson Desert on all supported platforms, including PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Crimson Desert will have a few settings for players to pick from, depending on the platform that they want to play the ambitious, open-world title on.
Crimson Desert will hit store shelves on March 19, after six years of development and a handful of release delays. As an action-RPG, Pearl Abyss’ upcoming title will put players in the perspective of the Greymane mercenary Kliff. After an attack by the Black Bears faction leaves the Greymanes scattered and decimated, Kliff swears vengeance on the Black Bears and goes on a journey to find his lost comrades. Despite the delays that the game endured, Crimson Desert went gold in January 2026, a full two months ahead of its launch. Pearl Abyss stated that it is utilizing the remaining time before launch to optimize and polish the game.
In My Eyes, Crimson Desert’s Massive Open World Still Has One Thing Left to Prove
Crimson Desert looks massive and impressive, but its open world still leaves one question lingering over my head.
With over a week to go until Crimson Desert goes live, Pearl Abyss revealed some of the graphical settings that players can pick from. Users can select the Performance and Quality presets out of the box, while an additional Balanced preset will be available if users are connected to a compatible display that has variable refresh rate enabled. Performance mode will set Crimson Desert to 1080p and 60 frames per second (FPS) on PS5 and Xbox Series X, while it will decrease to 720p on Xbox Series S. Ray tracing is disabled by default on Xbox Series S, though it remains active on the other consoles. Quality mode will use AMD’s FSR3 upscaling technology to run the game at 1440p before upscaling to a 4K resolution and at a fixed 30 FPS. Playing Crimson Desert on PS5 Pro will upscale the game to 4K when Performance or Balanced modes are picked, and can run at a native 4K resolution at 30 FPS in Quality mode. Ray tracing will be set to low or high on PS5 and Xbox Series X depending on the selected preset, while PS5 Pro can utilize ‘ultra’ ray tracing in Quality mode.
Crimson Desert Console Specs
PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X
Performance
- Resolution: 1080p
- Target Performance: 60 FPS VSync/60+ FPS VRR
- Ray Tracing Quality: Low
Balanced
- Resolution: Upscaled 4K (from 1280p, FSR 3)
- Target Performance: 40 FPS VSync
- Ray Tracing Quality: Low
Quality
- Resolution: Upscaled 4K (from 1440p, FSR 3)
- Target Performance: 30 FPS VSync
- Ray Tracing Quality: High
PlayStation 5 Pro
Performance
- Resolution: Upscaled 4K (from 1080p, Upgraded PSSR)
- Target Performance: 60 FPS VSync/60+ FPS VRR
- Ray Tracing Quality: High
Balanced
- Resolution: Upscaled 4K (from 1440p, Upgraded PSSR)
- Target Performance: 40 FPS VSync/48+ FPS VRR
- Ray Tracing Quality: High
Quality
- Resolution: 4K
- Target Performance: 30 FPS VSync
- Ray Tracing Quality: Ultra
Xbox Series S
Performance
- Resolution: 720p
- Target Performance: 40 FPS VSync
- Ray Tracing Off
Quality
- Resolution: 1080p
- Target Performance: 30 FPS VSync
- Ray Tracing Off
As for Crimson Desert‘s Balanced mode, users with a 120hz or 240hz monitor, or a display with variable refresh rate technology, can play the game at an upscaled 4K resolution (from 1280p) and 40 FPS with vertical sync (VSync) enabled. Variable refresh rate can be used in Balanced or Performance mode on PS5 Pro, while it will only be present in Performance mode on the base PS5 and on Xbox Series X. When VRR is enabled in Performance mode, players can achieve more than 60 FPS.
Drag weapons to fill the grid
Drag weapons to fill the grid
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The console presets were revealed despite no footage from Crimson Desert‘s PS5 or Xbox ports being shown off as of this writing. Despite the lack of console footage, Pearl Abyss PR and Marketing Director Will Powers stated that Crimson Desert was still undergoing some “heavy optimization phases” in February. Powers asked fans to “let us cook” after he was repeatedly asked about what the game looks like on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Though Crimson Desert eventually shared PS5 Pro footage, it remains to be seen how it will perform on all supported platforms.
Crimson Desert Also Shares Windows and macOS Specs
Additionally, Crimson Desert gave Windows and macOS users a look at the spec requirements needed to play the game at different resolutions. At the absolute minimum setting, the PC port of Crimson Desert requires an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, an AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT, or a newer GPU. However, the high and ultra presets require a modern AMD or Nvidia graphics card with at least 12 to 16GB of VRAM, including AMD’s Radeon RX 9070 XT. By comparison, Crimson Desert‘s macOS presets will depend on the Apple machine users have. However, Pearl Abyss recommended playing the game on macOS 26 Tahoe or later for optimal performance. However, PC gamers should ensure their graphics drivers are running the latest versions before booting up Crimson Desert.
- Released
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March 19, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language
- Developer(s)
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Pearl Abyss
- Publisher(s)
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Pearl Abyss
