After years of unimaginable hype (and a week or two of last-minute skepticism), the reviews for Crimson Desert are finally in. According to the critics, Pearl Abyss’ ambitious open-world game is neither a generational masterpiece or an over-hyped flop. It’s simply a solid open-world game where your enjoyment will depend on how much patience you have for its frustrating quirks.
As of this writing, Crimson Desert currently has an aggregate score of 78 pulled from 91 reviews. All of those reviews come from players on Windows PC, as there are currently no reviews logged for PS5 or Xbox Series X. (Critics were only provided with the PC version of the game ahead of release.) While there’s a bit of high praise and sharp criticism on both ends, reviewers ended up finding consensus somewhere around “good.”
On the positive side, critics are impressed by the game’s enormous sense of scale and density of activity. For MMORPG, Joseph Bradford called it “the most ambitious open world I’ve ever experienced” and plenty of write-ups echo a similar thought on a pure world design level. Even some of the more negative reviews praise Pearl Abyss for the ambition here. The most glowing reviews focus in on that point, like Forbes’ Paul Tassi.
“A hundred hours into this game, I have never been bored,” Tassi wrote in his review. “There are so many things to do, so many avenues of progression and questing and crafting and puzzles and boss hunting and territory takeovers and—the list just does not end.”
The bulk of the reviews are a bit more conservative. In a four-star review, GamesRadar+ writer Joel Franey praised the game’s pure spectacle, but noted that the game lacks a lot of refinements that keeps it from rising to the bar set by games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Still, Franey came out positive on it on the whole after getting comfortable with its bottomless well of systems.
“I know, I know – ‘it gets good if you invest a working fortnight’ is weak praise, but it’s still true. It does get better!” Franey wrote.
“Part of that comes from understanding the game well enough to navigate its flaws. Certain powers aren’t worth the upgrades, there are swathes of tedious side activities, a story that you can comfortably fast forward through, and some poorly-balanced bosses that I endured rather than savored.”
Other critics aren’t quite as enamored with it, more heavily weighing some of the complaints that can be found in even the most positive reviews. GameSpot’s Richard Wakeling took issue with its weak storytelling, cumbersome inventory management, and various quality of life problems that cut into the “excellent combat.” Similarly, for The Gamer, Harry Alston called it “deeply flawed” due to repetitive quests, tedious grinding, and unintuitive puzzles. Still, that review, which was based on 150 hours of playtime, praised its world and “outstanding combat.”
Two major publications, Eurogamer and IGN, sit on the lower end of the spectrum. In a three-star review, Eurogamer see-sawed between being bought into a “maximalist fever dream” and finding it to be “one of the most shameless games I’ve ever played,” per critic Lewis Gordon. The review cites issues like “regressive quest design” and slow resource management as factors that get in the way of its furious combat and technical prowess.
IGN published a review in progress with similar thoughts, currently giving it a not-final 6/10 score. While writer Travis Northup was impressed by it initially, he softened on it over his 110 hours of playtime. He again praised the world, but found the action disappointing over time. He labels the game as a jack of all trades but master of none in a critical review.
“Beyond combat, there’s loads of stuff Crimson Desert tries that just doesn’t work at all, from extremely ill-advised stealth sections (which are exactly as bad as you’re imagining) to puzzles that often feel like you’re brute forcing your way through them rather than coming up with a creative solution,” Northup wrote. “In trying so many things, this RPG often feels like it’s bitten off more than it can chew, resulting in pockets of gameplay like this that feel very underdeveloped.”
Whether or not you’ll like Crimson Desert seems to hinge on how much you enjoy sheer spectacle and can live with underdeveloped systems to enjoy it. Reviews mostly agree that the scope of the world and the combat are high points, but a stack of issues beyond that have reviews giving it a good yetmeasured response to varying degrees. As for our take, Marloes Valentina Stella is not impressed by her early hours.
“If someone had taken the trouble to cut all the nonsense from Crimson Desert, removing the fetch quests, basic battles, and hefty chunks of map filler, you’d probably be left with a decent experience,” she wrote. “As it stands, its most noteworthy feature is how long you can travel in one direction without encountering anything worthwhile.”
Crimson Desert will be released on March 19 for PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.
