Crimson Desert

A monumental masterpiece: Despite the bugs, clunky menus, and awkward controls, its magnetic pull is simply impossible to resist.

After spending roughly 30 hours with the game, I would have scored the game in the 9.0 out of 10 range. Now that I have completed the story, I feel that score is completely warranted, and would have been even higher if the narrative had a bit more cohesion. Crimson Desert is very fun and gripping, and a game that is very easy to get lost into with an incredible world density, its sandbox mechanics allowing for tons of player expression in traversal, combat, and quest completion, so much so that I feel I will continue to play the game for a long time even after having completed the story. Now completely comfortable with the game's unique quirks, I firmly believe Crimson Desert has the chance of being this year's Baldur's Gate 3 and becoming a benchmark moving forward for all open-world games.

Crimson Desert features a fantastic, content-rich open world where player freedom is the number one priority. There's so much to do and so many places to go to that it's easy to get lost among its ancient ruins, mystical forests, and snowy mountains. A lack of polish breeds frustration, but nothing can shake up the firm foundations of this incredible title.

Crimson Desert will likely appeal most to players who enjoy getting lost in an incredibly detailed and realistic open world and figuring things out for themselves, even when the game isn't always clear about how everything works. Those who value exploration and long-form progression will find plenty to dig into, especially if they don't mind learning it all through a fair amount of trial and error. On the other hand, players who prefer a more streamlined experience, a stronger narrative focus, or systems that clearly communicate their rules may find the journey more frustrating than rewarding. Even though Crimson Desert initially seemed like a game for everyone, it's not, but it is one that everyone should at least try.

Crimson Desert is an experience that won’t appeal to everyone, but it can be unforgettable for those who embrace what others might see as flaws. Blending combat, survival, and exploration, the game offers over 100 hours of content that may feel superficial to some yet captivating to others. Despite issues like confusing menus and a clunky inventory system, it remains fun and worthy of attention in 2026. Ultimately, the key question is whether you have the time and willingness to dive into its expansive design, which could shine even brighter if it focused less on quantity and more on personality.

Crimson Desert’s best moments come when you think about the game it could have been, were it not for its overabundance of clunky mechanics and its painfully sluggish controls. Riddled with glitches and systems that don’t work, Pearl Abyss’s first single-player game can rely on its sublime open world, or its core management system borrowed from BDO, to occasionally lift us out of our frustration.

Crimson Desert draws attention for its ambitious open-world adventure proposal, but the experience ultimately falls short of expectations. The game features a confusing narrative, with uninteresting characters and missions that feel like generic MMO tasks. The combat has many mechanics but little depth, with artificial difficulty spikes and unresponsive controls. Even with impressive graphics and a high degree of exploration freedom, issues with art direction, bugs, and design decisions make the game feel vast in content but shallow in quality.

Best game of the year for me. GTA6 is looking like an interactive movie and not a real game. Zelda is a remake so I have to give more credit for a new IP Crimson Desert. This is better than RE9, Forza, 007, and onimusha.

A vast and amazingly detailed world will only capture your attention for a few hours if the navigation controls are cranky and, most importantly, if the lore iends up being so shallow. Had lot of potential. What a shame.

It's really hard to write a review for Crimson Desert. It is a game that today demonstrates what areas research and development are progressing in and what areas are not progressing in.Today the market is so caught up in graphic development that it forgets a video game is also a SCREENPLAY. A mix of things, and among these there is also the writing of the story.I don't want to dwell, everything has already been said and covered, but this game leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth. Breathtaking views, a very dynamic and valid combat model, and then wasting all this innovation by not writing compelling stories. A video game is like a movie, like a book. THE STORY is very important and in this title the writing is totally lacking. The characters' dialogue itself destroys the atmosphere and the story is banal and terribly written. Moreover, the lack of dedication to NPCs in all games nowadays is becoming a real disease.Skyrim's NPCs were 200 times deeper. NPCs are not PUPPETS! Developers, NPCs are the ones who help narrate the game, to create ****'s terrible that NPCs are this stupid, and it's a cancer that is spreading more and more in modern gaming. Criomson D is undoubtedly a good game. With great dynamics, ruined by TERRIBLE writing, and by truly unevocative, repetitive, and technically obsolete NPCs. NPCs ARE IMPORTANT dear developers! Please take care of the writing of the dialogue. ty for your time!

My main issue with the game is an issue with many PC games. The game was designed for consoles and the porting to pc is half assed at best. As for the positives, the game is gorgeous to look at and the interaction with the environment is decent. Also, the ability to climb is great. I love the freedom it provides. and unlike many pc games, you do not have to spend hours walking around mountains or other terrain features. This feature is well designed, and thought and planning are necessary to climb high cliffs. Now for the bad. This is a console game, like many of these games, that is not ported over to PC well. Also, the game interaction is often cumbersome and tedious. ?You want to cook some meals, start pressing buttons and either wait for the same cut scene or press more buttons to proceed. You want to interact with an NPC, you cant press one button. No, you have to press multiple buttons, ridiculous. And combat, like many console game ports, is simply mashing buttons while battling oodles of enemies. Half the time, I don't even know what combination I am pressing, yet I easily defeat scores of npc enemies. The inventory interaction is confusing and frustrating. YOu want to arm a sword, press a function button then choose. No easy way to switch through different items. It gets frustrating. Especially when you are trying to do a specific task like mine, and the game simply switches your active item. As for the game, designers really need to stop giving our champions of the land ridiculous task like go gather flowers because the npc refuses to do it. But I, the hero has to go pick flowers. WHY? And the puzzles, how about you design puzzles with subtle clues vs simply having to randomly guess for days in the hopes I can solve a random assignment. I would prefer writing a 10 page English report than try to guess random puzzles. There are many more negatives, but I am doing this off the top of my head. This game is more designed to frustrate than entertain. As an example of the frustration, every boss fight follows the same sequence, battle boss even though they can stun you for many seconds and beat you to a pulp, but luckily, just eat some food mid battle to instantly heal, pound on the boss, only to have him fully heal and increase power so you have to do it again, beat some more, then boss fully heals again and powers up more. Finally defeat the boss (not actually as a cut scene finishes the boss, not you) only to have them escape and run off. So you spend 10 minutes battling, and no kill. Finally, and this applies to many games, why must I follow an npc at the slowest walk possible. Can you not design a system of me following the npc, but let me set the pace? Follow an npc and have them get stuck behind another npc so you could crawl faster. And its not for a quick 5 second walk. It lasts many minutes of following these NPCs incapable of moving faster than a limping shuffle, even while on horse back. Again, if you want a fun and challenging game, spend your money else where.

Based on 83 hours thus far, I would not recommend getting this game at full price and would wait for a big sale before buying it. This game is soulless. It has no character of its own and it is an uninspired and blatant rip off of other popular games. It's a game for social media clips and for maladapted anime nerds that obsess over form over substance and for casuals that just enjoy the bare minimum as long as it is pretty. It has no depth. The world feels absolutely artificial and perhaps that's purposeful because it serves no other purpose other than to facilitate the power fantasy which this game really is all about. This game is entirely about a power fantasy and about repetitive grind to expand the power fantasy. Once you accept that, it can be somewhat fun and engaging--you get more powerful and then can do more things. But is it immersive? Not at all. There's really nothing to pull you in. It feels very "video gamey" and doesn't hide the fact--e.g., when you summon your horse, instead of running in from some unseen location like in Witcher 3 or KCD2, it literally just appears magically in front of you in an animation made to look like pixels being generated/rendered out of nothingness, reminding you that you are playing a video game. Exploration is NOT good and that's the biggest lie about this game. Exploration in good open world RPGs is about finding new locations, factions, characters that are hand-crafted and well-developed with interesting dialogue, lore, personalization etc. This has none of that. You might encounter a new area or village, but there's NOTHING to be found there--at most, it will be some mobs or a boss, a puzzle, and then possibly some items/resources to farm, it's all about the grind and increasing your power. However, it is undoubtedly a visually stunning and beautiful game. For that one reason, it has raised the bar for games. Also, the sheer visual beauty and detail of the game does help immerse you in the game--if you forget that the world provides zero engaging writing/narrative/worldbuilding on its own, and you use your imagination, the graphics can almost make you feel like you are playing something truly special for a little while. For that reason, it can be a fun game to just pick up and play for some quick grind here and there, until you hit that "wall" and realize you aren't really provided anything to do other than grind for more resources etc. TLDR: it's a fun power fantasy sandbox geared for social media clips, kids, and adult dweebs that still obsess over one-dimensional anime-esque power maxxing instead of enjoying mature storytelling with nuance etc., but otherwise it's a mediocre game that has no business being compared to actual masterpieces like Witcher 3, RDR2, KCD2 etc. As a sandbox to mess around in and play with some of the mechanics, it can provide some casual fun. Buy it on a 50% sale if you're truly interested.