Crimson Desert Reviews

Crimson Desert is ranked in the 79th percentile of games scored on OpenCritic.
PlayStation Universe
Miles Penrith
Top Critic
9 / 10.0
Mar 20, 2026

Crimson Desert is an incredibly ambitious project. If you are willing to commit, you will find appreciation in this deeply immersive medieval RPG that is almost stuffed with too many features, but somehow makes it all hang together in a beautiful and ambitious package.

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9 / 10.0
Mar 18, 2026

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Review in Italian | Read full review

Mar 18, 2026

If you hadn’t already guessed, Crimson Desert is a behemoth of an RPG that threatens to eat up all your time. If only it wasn’t primed to frustrate and test your patience as much while doing so.

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84 / 100
Mar 18, 2026

By both accident and design, there are times when clarity and user-friendliness temporarily disappear, and the game’s rough edges and opaque mechanics overshadow the fun. A lot of games over-promise and under-deliver. Crimson Desert is not one of them.

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GameMAG
Top Critic
8 / 10
Mar 18, 2026

Crimson Desert is unlikely to become a revolution that will redefine the genre. But it will certainly attract crowds of people and spark more than a few heated debates. It's funny that the very desert featured in the title is just one of many corners of the vast world created by Pearl Abyss - one that, presumably, far from everyone will reach.

Review in Russian | Read full review

Mar 18, 2026

Crimson Desert's sandbox playground and beautifully crafted world do a lot of the heavy lifting to just about overshadow its confusing elements, generic story, and boring characters. What's here is an overwhelming amount of content and the bones of an amazing game that has to be respected for its ambitions.

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9 / 10.0
Mar 18, 2026

I can confidently say that Crimson Desert is a modern masterpiece, despite its shortcomings.

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89 / 100
Mar 18, 2026

Even in its current state, Crimson Desert has the potential to become my game of the year. If the console performance is still good and the day-one patch perhaps even fixes a few annoying issues, the action-adventure could even climb a small step higher in my ranking.

Review in German | Read full review

PCGamesN
Top Critic
6 / 10
Mar 18, 2026

Crimson Desert is huge, and it's beautiful, but it can't pull itself out of the bog standard narrative trenches. Combat feels clunky, especially when facing off against one of the many frustrating bosses, and there feels like there is little reward for exploration. I wanted to like this, but it left me feeling empty.

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Jeremy Penter
Top Critic
Wait for Sale
Mar 18, 2026
Crimson Desert Review video thumbnail
Gameblog
Top Critic
8 / 10
Mar 18, 2026

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Review in French | Read full review

94 / 100
Mar 18, 2026

Crimson Desert is an RPG that rewards the patient player. The more time you spend in its world, the more you understand its systems and the more you enjoy what it has to offer. And when that happens, it becomes very easy to get swept away by the adventure and immerse yourself in the work that Pearl Abyss has created for us over so many years.

Review in Spanish | Read full review

GamingTrend
Top Critic
95 / 100
Mar 18, 2026

This is a once-in-a-generation action RPG that redefines the genre, providing hundreds of hours of incredibly varied gameplay that never stops giving you new things to do. There are a handful of bugs to hammer out, but don't let that dissuade you — you're looking at your likely RPG of the year.

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Press Start
Top Critic
8.5 / 10.0
Mar 19, 2026

Though I’ll call it imperfect but patchable, Crimson Desert is still impressive enough to be within striking distance of the juggernauts of this genre. At the very least, this represents one of the first few must-plays of the year. Perhaps contradictorily, Crimson Desert is a lush and generously-sized oasis of awesome that needs to be seen to be believed on PC. Here's hoping the console versions are up to snuff as well.

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8 / 10.0
Mar 23, 2026

Crimson Desert is an excellent open world action adventure title that does so many things right it's easy to ignore its flaws.

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CGMagazine
Top Critic
6 / 10.0
Mar 18, 2026

Crimson Desert is an ambitious open-world game that buckles under its own weight, making it a fun but flawed experience that will leave the player base divided.

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Mar 18, 2026

Despite a few minor issues, Crimson Desert sets a new benchmark for this style of open-world experience, one that will be extremely difficult for future games to match.

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8.6 / 10.0
Mar 19, 2026

Crimson Desert feels like a single player version of an MMORPG that has been live for years. Its sheer scale alone is enough to guarantee hundreds of hours of playtime. But with its weak guidance, cumbersome interactions, and many design choices that show little regard for user experience, whether that time feels enjoyable or exhausting will likely vary from player to player.

Review in Chinese | Read full review

5.5 / 10.0
Mar 19, 2026

Proving that looks aren't everything, Crimson Desert's stunning visuals and strong performances aren't enough to save it from being a disappointing experience. Jam-packed with content and systems that make it feel like a Jack of all features, master of none with an unenjoyable gameplay loop, Crimson Desert is really just a single-player MMORPG in all but name.

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Saudi Gamer
Top Critic
7 / 10
Mar 31, 2026

Crimson Desert is not a bad game at all, but it really feels like this person who is trying everything and too hard to get you which will eventually get you tired of their attempts. Too many things, too little soul.

Review in Arabic | Read full review