Crimson Desert Reviews
A technical achievement that proves you can build everything - and still have nothing to say.
What’s most troubling about Crimson Desert is that Pearl Abyss has something truly good at its core, but has gone out of its way to “overload” it with as many features as possible.
Review in Greek | Read full review
Often feeling like a game chasing greatness, Crimson Desert is in every sense of the word ambitious. Sure, Kliff’s story of revenge is one that been told a thousand times, but it’s seemingly endless open world begs you to chase the adventures beyond the horizon. When you tie this beautifully crafted playground together with a combat system that encourages the player to experiment and think outside the box, you get a game that feels impossibly complex while feeling eerily familiar in the same breath. Crimson Desert is many things – dangerously ambitious, clunky, beautiful, messy, and most importantly: mind-numbingly addictive.
Crimson Desert is the next-gen game we were promised a decade ago by AAA publishers. The scale here is beyond massive, with hundreds of hours offered here if you can get past the game’s criminal control setup and sluggish opening few hours. With some bizarre design choices, Crimson Desert is a game that I can see both sides of the argument on, given the current state of the game. Still, Pearl Abyss has created what is effectively the next Skyrim, a game that offers an unparalleled amount of freedom, that rewards you the more you put into it.
Crimson Desert is a massive and ambitious project defined by its extremes: it presents itself as a vast open-world game that incorporates the greatest modern gaming achievements, yet it suffers from a fragmented identity, shoddy storytelling, and an overwhelming abundance of content that stifles its original spirit. Nevertheless, it’s an adventure that’s well worth your attention, poised to improve steadily through dedicated post-launch support.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Crimson Desert is an extremely ambitious open-world adventure, and that ambition is what makes it both incredibly cool and gobsmackingly infuriating in almost equal measure.
Vast and obtuse in a way that is going to frustrate some and exhilarate others, Crimson Desert is a fascinating journey, even when the destination isn't all that.
A vast world and even vaster array of MMO-like activities mix with glittering fidelity in Crimson Desert, but what good is it without much character, texture or charm?
It’s highly ambitious and one of the most intriguing triple-A games I’ve played in years, but I just wish so many parts of the whole weren’t inherently flawed. Now my journey in Pywel has come to an end, I’ll be leaving this one on the shelf for a while.
The studio clearly took liberal inspiration from other games, but I hope that there can be something more looking toward the future. Crimson Desert has something special buried beneath its surface, if all those unneeded layers can be cut out.
It might not always be the most cohesive game, mixing high fantasy with steampunk and sci-fi elements, but there's nothing else quite like it, and I can't help but be impressed by how little restraint Pearl Abyss has shown in its commitment to delightful absurdity. In some respects, Crimson Desert might not be too good to be true, but it's a world worth getting lost in.
As it stands on release, the best parts of Crimson Desert are buried deep under layers of absurdity.
From the makers of Black Desert Online comes their first spectacular foray into the single player market.
The story is pretty average, and the beginning can be brutal, but if you're the kind of person who loves big, sandbox adventures, this one is worth the ride (and $69). $1.29 at Amazon $59.49 at Fanatical(PC) $69.99 at GamersGate $69.99 at Green Man Gaming
It's simply one of the biggest games I have ever played, with an astonishing amount of high-quality content, an absurd amount of complex puzzles, and a world so gigantic that I still haven't come close to seeing everything after 100 hours of playtime. While the story isn't the best and some bosses seem downright unfair, those flaws do little to diminish Crimson Desert, an absolute marvel and one of the best open-world games on the market.
A bizarre mishmash of disparate gameplay elements, with absolutely no sense of coherent design or narrative… and yet its stunning game world is still a fascinating mess to explore.
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Review in Spanish | Read full review
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Crimson Desert offers one of the most impressive worlds in gaming, but the deeper you go, the more it asks you to meet it on its own terms.
We can't fully recommend Crimson Desert in its current state on PS5. Far too many technical issues - of varying shapes and sizes - hold the experience back.But given time, and despite its obvious narrative shortcomings, Pearl Abyss' fantasy outing has the potential to be something truly special. As an open world adventure, it can be utterly engrossing; a smorgasbord of systems and mechanics that somehow - against all odds - form an intoxicating whole. For better or worse, there's simply nothing like Crimson Desert.