Crimson Desert Reviews
Crimson Desert is one of those games that manages to seamlessly combine elements from our favorite RPGs and open world games. While you can see some of its original MMO roots in the quest design and side activities, it’s clearly meant to be a wonderful, immersive and engaging action RPG focused on exploration and with a good, emotional story to boot.
Crimson Desert is one of the most ambitious games in a long time. It's an expansive, and deeply detailed fantasy world that constantly invites exploration and rewards curiosity. Its fluid, skill-based combat and sheer scale are genuinely impressive, but that same ambition often works against it. A lack of focus, overly complex systems, and a slow, demanding progression can make the experience feel overwhelming and, at times, exhausting. It's a game of extremes: deeply immersive and rewarding for those willing to invest the time, but far from accessible for everyone.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Crimson Desert is a demanding, complex RPG that can feel punishing and occasionally unfair, especially without constant progression. Yet it offers a breathtaking open world with unmatched scale and depth. Its reception will vary widely'frustrating for some, but deeply rewarding for those willing to fully invest.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
I had high hopes for Crimson Desert, but... I was more disappointed than thrilled. A single-player MMO based on things we love from other great games—it just couldn't work out as well as we thought.
Review in Polish | Read full review
Dark Souls has often been used to measure one's gaming prowess, but that measuring stick has changed with Crimson Desert. Not only does it boast some of the most challenging boss battles ever seen in the industry, its required levels of patience, determination, and ability have set a new gold standard.
An ambitious adventure set in a visually stunning world that tries to do a bit too much, ultimately feeling underdeveloped in some respects.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Crimson Desert offers a vast and visually stunning open world, full of freedom and exploration, but its simplistic story and unclear objectives may frustrate many players.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Crimson Desert is a massive game that pushes the boundaries of open world RPGs a little further, giving players a completely different level of freedom than competing titles. If you find yourself liking its unique style that won't suit everyone, its heavy focus on action and unrestricted adventuring will give you a great place to find hundreds of hours of entertainment.
Review in Unknown | Read full review
Crimson Desert lives up to its promise, delivering a rich open world with plenty of activities and fun combat. However, the title doesn't reach its peak because it lacks a particularly compelling protagonist and wastes the potential of other playable characters. Furthermore, the project still needs some polishing.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Crimson Desert is one of the most ambitious games in the genre in many years. Its open world is immense, but not empty, with the continent of Pywel rich in detail, inhabitants, secrets, and memorable landscapes. Exploring it is therefore a rewarding experience.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Although Crimson Desert falls short in terms of its story and narrative, its vast world, gameplay mechanics and brilliant execution have introduced the term ‘single-player MMORPG’ into our vocabulary, and we’re likely to be hearing it more often.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Crimson Desert is a colossal, rough-edged, and at times chaotic game, yet one that is also incredibly captivating. Its controls demand patience, its narrative falls short of the potential of its world, and some of its design choices remain overly cumbersome. But it also boasts exceptional exploration, deep combat, an impressive array of mechanics, and a sense of adventure that few open-world games today can still convey with such power. Pearl Abyss has created a work that doesn’t aim for formal perfection, but for grandeur. And, despite stumbling several times along the way, it still manages to leave its mark. If you can get past the initial hurdle of the controls and accept a few inevitable rough edges, and overcome that ‘déjà vu’ feeling you’ll often experience when encountering a mechanic from that particular game, you’ll find yourself with a title capable of absorbing you for hundreds of hours, full of surprising moments and, above all, incredibly fun to play. It isn’t the most polished game in its category, but it is certainly one of the most vibrant, generous and ambitious of recent times.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Crimson Desert backseats the quality of its story and writing, yet it succeeds on its engaging exploration, outstanding technical prowess and an overabundance of content and activities.
Crimson Desert comes highly recommended because it’s a game that combines ambition, scale, and detail in an exceptional way. At first, it can be frustrating due to its dense systems, cryptic puzzles, and some questionable design choices, but when everything clicks, it offers a unique experience. It’s a game designed for those who enjoy in-depth exploration paired with a complex combat system, rewarding patience and curiosity.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Crimson Desert is a game of contradictions. It captivates and frustrates, offering a vast world that invites exploration even as its ideas feel held back. It’s “a giant playground,” yes, but one where every attraction seems restrained, never fully realized. Yet something keeps calling you back — above all, its world, “the beautiful frame of a painting,” urging you toward one more path, one more horizon. It has that peculiar charm of imperfect but sincere games: not entirely successful, yet strangely unforgettable. Crimson Desert doesn’t deliver on all its promises, but it leaves a mark. It could have been much more, yet it still manages to hold onto something — not everything, but enough to stay with you. In a landscape full of flawless but forgettable titles, that’s no small thing.
Review in Italian | Read full review
"Game of the Year" Crimson Desert offers an immersive and ambitious experience for open-world game enthusiasts, combining a complex combat system, free exploration, and interconnected life systems that provide depth and interactivity. Realistic graphics and advanced lighting enhance immersion, while the technical performance is relatively stable. However, the game requires patience and investment to grasp its complexity and overcome its technical and design challenges, making it an excellent experience for dedicated gamers but potentially overwhelming for beginners.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
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Review in Dutch | Read full review
Pearl Abyss's long-awaited RPG, Crimson Desert, had sort of a rough landing but eventually delivers one of the most absorbing open worlds in recent memory.
Crimson Desert is a gorgeous audiovisual experience with obtuse mechanics, poor mission design, and a nonexistent story. It plays like an MMO trapped in the frame of a single-player adventure game with too many cooks in the kitchen.