Why Crimson Desert's Steam Rating Keeps Climbing (And Why It May Not Be Over Yet)

“Crimson Desert is not for everyone.” That’s a statement that keeps making the rounds, and it’s even one that I included in my own review of the game because I agree. To be fair, it’s true, just as it’s true of all games. But what makes Crimson Desert a special case here is that it seemed to be marketed as a game for everyone ahead of its launch—with elements pulled from what feels like countless other games like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Red Dead Redemption 2, and the idea that players would be given limitless freedom to play their way. After the game launched, however, that was proven to be somewhat untrue, as Crimson Desert showed itself to be something a bit different from what it initially appeared to be, thereby resulting in an early Steam rating of Mixed.

The open-world action-adventure game is now around a week old, though, and its Steam rating has already climbed to Very Positive, which means at least 80% of the reviews submitted on the platform are positive. What’s interesting is that it managed to achieve a Very Positive rating just a couple of days after it had risen to a Mostly Positive rating, showing a fairly rapid climb in a short amount of time. This is actually a rare occurrence for games on Steam, as most that begin with a lower rating, if they do eventually improve, don’t for quite a while after launch. But there’s a perfectly valid reason for Crimson Desert‘s increasingly positive rating on Valve’s platform, and there’s actually enough evidence to suggest it could only improve over the coming weeks.

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Reason #1: Crimson Desert Is a Massive Game

The first and most obvious reason Crimson Desert‘s Steam rating continues to climb is because it is a massive game. Even though it doesn’t have the largest open world ever made, what makes it such a sprawling adventure is just how much there is to do in the game. And even then, it’s not necessarily the amount of content in Crimson Desert that makes it feel enormous, but the variety of that content.

Who’s That Character?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Who’s That Character?

Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.

Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)

When players move through the open world repeatedly completing what, on the surface, seem like the same tasks—like Crimson Desert‘s Zelda-like puzzles or region liberation—rarely should they feel like they’ve seen or experienced the same thing twice, as the game ensures almost everything at least looks different enough to make it feel different. Building interiors all seem to have a different layout, while their exteriors have distinct styles. Enemy camps have varying sizes and enemy types, and clearing one might yield valuable rewards or world-changing transformations, while clearing another might simply contribute toward the player’s reputation with a region’s faction.

There are caves scattered throughout Crimson Desert‘s open world, some of which house crafting materials like ore and gems, and others where players can find progression items like Abyss Artifacts or even optional boss encounters that award powerful gear upon completion. There are random events players can encounter when they’re traveling from one location to the next—like helping a stranger find their way to a nearby town—and there are more side quests than players can likely count, many of which are rewarding simply due to the increased inventory capacity they offer once they’re completed.

But this is all still just a fraction of what this massive world contains, and the real point I’m making is that, for a review of Crimson Desert to be accurate and therefore credible, it would need to be backed by dozens of hours of time spent in the game. Sure, players might run into a frustrating issue within only a few hours, but because there is so much more to experience beyond those few hours, a review submitted that early is only going to reflect a narrow slice of an experience that’s designed to unfold over a lot of time, where early frustrations can eventually evolve into praise.

In other words, as time goes on, Crimson Desert‘s Steam rating most likely continues to rise because it is taking players much longer to form an opinion about the game than another title might allow. There are hundreds upon hundreds of hours of content in Crimson Desert, which means those reviews will continue to trickle in, and if they lean more toward the positive side of the spectrum, so will its overall score. If that trend really does continue, Crimson Desert could eventually be laying a finger or two on that Overwhelmingly Positive Steam rating.

Reason #2: Crimson Desert Is Receiving Rapid Updates

The second most likely reason Crimson Desert‘s Steam rating has continued to rise is that Pearl Abyss has been hard at work on improving some of the game’s most frustrating issues, with three updates made to it since its launch just a week ago. I can also say, as someone who was involved in the review process, that the developer also updated the game at least twice with some major fixes that many people probably aren’t even aware of. Had those issues made it into the launch version of the game, Crimson Desert might have had an even steeper hill to climb, so props to the dev team for doling out these fixes so quickly.

Biggest Updates Made to Crimson Desert Since Launch

ITEM STORAGE CHEST — Private storage at Hernand lodgings and Howling Hill camp.
IMPROVED FAST TRAVEL — New fast-travel options in key locations.
FASTER LEARNING SYSTEM — Reduced time to acquire knowledge and learn skills.
REBALANCED BOSS FIGHTS — Reed Devil and other bosses tuned for fairness.
ADJUSTED CONTROLS — Adjusted keyboard/mouse and controller controls.
BUFFS TO HEALING — Increased HP restored from food/items.
IMPROVED PUZZLE DESIGN — Some puzzles have been tweaked to offer more clarity.
SIMPLIFIED ENVIRONMENTAL INTERACTIONS — Example: chopping trees no longer requires aiming.

But what’s happening here is that, as Crimson Desert has improved over time, so has players’ perception of it. It’s possible some players have even gone in and changed their review in Steam to more accurately reflect how they feel about the game now that it has received some much-needed fixes, and if that did and continues to happen, the open-world action-adventure game’s overall rating on the platform will increase as a result. Furthermore, as current players share their positive impressions of the game after getting some hands-on time with these improvements, even more new players may find their way into the game and end up with a similar take on it.

As time goes on, Crimson Desert‘s Steam rating most likely continues to rise because it is taking players much longer to form an opinion about the game than another title might allow.

Ultimately, what’s happening with Crimson Desert‘s Steam rating feels like the game is finally being seen for what it actually is. It launched with expectations that didn’t quite match its identity, and that showed up immediately in its early reviews. But as players have spent more time with it and as Pearl Abyss has continued refining the experience, that gap has started to close. If that pattern holds, there’s a strong case to be made that the current “Very Positive” rating still isn’t the ceiling, but just another step in a longer process of players catching up to what Crimson Desert has been all along.