Crimson Desert Reviews
Chaotic, frustrating, but undeniably ambitious. Crimson Desert constantly tests our patience with technical problems and a confusing narrative, before letting us enjoy its ambitious combat system, exploration and stunning visuals. A game that demands time and a lot of patience for those who manage to overcome the barrier of its lack of polish.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
The world design and combat of Crimson Desert are a resounding win for fans of free-form exploration, but the bland story and the tedious flow of Crimson Desert stop it from becoming the true masterpiece it could have been.
Crimson Desert is by no means a perfect game. It’s an amalgamation of perhaps slightly too many ideas, and that makes for a weirdly paced experience that demands a lot of the player without offering much in the way of help. And yet, it left me in awe more times than anything else I’ve played in recent memory with its dazzling open-world. Crimson Desert may not be the best game you'll ever play, but it’ll certainly be up there as perhaps the most memorable.
An exceptional and stunningly beautiful open-world action game, with incredibly rich gameplay and a pleasantly old-fashioned level of difficulty, regardless of its potentially frustrating flaws.
Crimson Desert, while offering a truly exceptional offline MMORPG experience, falls slightly short of expectations due to some minor shortcomings.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
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Review in German | Read full review
Crimson Desert unfolds in a vast open world filled with an enormous amount of content, but there are simply too many gameplay elements scattered without order, clashing with one another. There is room for improvement, but as it stands now, it falls somewhat short of being a truly great game.
Review in Korean | Read full review
It might not be the cleanest contender in the open-world arena, but it’s easily one of the most interesting. A sprawling, slightly chaotic, thoroughly entertaining swing that connects far more often than it misses.
This is a massive undertaking for any development team. It's ambitious to a point that it becomes curious that it was attempted. But unlike Captain Ahab, this is a level of investment and ambition that ultimately pays off in the highest order. The level of detail in Crimson Desert is unlike anything we have seen in this console generation.
Crimson Desert is everything I hoped it would be, and it has the potential to be one of the biggest titles of this generation of gaming.
Crimson Desert is frustrating and buggy and can be very player-unfriendly, but it's also beautiful, deep, seemingly endless and monumentally, perhaps detrimentally, ambitious.
Crimson Desert is a breath of fresh air for those looking for true ambition and adventure, as it delivers one of the most experimental combat systems and an open world on par with anything Rockstar Games has ever made.
If you look up the term ‘open world’ ‘Crimson Desert’ is bound to be listed right next to it. Because you can’t get much more open-world than that. It offers a world in which you can completely lose yourself. What could be better?
Review in German | Read full review
A mediocre plot and bland writing can't hold back one of the most ambitious games ever made. Stunning graphics, great gameplay, and excellent music carry you through hundreds of hours of systems-based fun. It somehow lives up to all the hype, with some rough edges in tow.
Crimson Desert is a sprawling adventure across a vast and living world that rewards every hour you put into it. The core gameplay evolves with your progress, introducing upgradable skills and increasingly demanding boss fights, with plenty of content to discover. While the narrative initially lacks direction and its threads can feel disconnected, this never outweighs the game’s many strengths. Crimson Desert is a slow burn that rewards time, patience, and curiosity.
Leave it to Pearl Abyss to create a dynamic open world where you can completely lose yourself - Crimson Desert is a must-play.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
Crimson Desert isn't a perfect game. It's not a game for everyone, and it's got as many good ideas as it does poorly implemented ones. However, what cannot be denied is that this game is a generational game and an open-world experience like no other. It's visually outstanding, mechanically dense, and immersive beyond compare. Yet, it's also one of the most laborious games to get to grips with in recent memory, meaning a lot of players may bounce off this title. However, what I would say is 'stick with it'. As Crimson Desert is a game that doesn't respect your time, but certainly deserves it.