After a difficult start, Crimson Desert is becoming a hit. But not only are sales figures rising, the mood in the community has turned 180 degrees. Many players are celebrating one thing in particular.
What is this milestone? On X, the developers of Pearl Abyss celebrate that they have now sold over 4 million units of Crimson Desert. Since each version of the game has generated about 70 euros, you can currently estimate revenue to be around 280 million euros (minus shares for platform owners like Valve).
The increasing success of Crimson Desert is also reflected in the ratings. While user reviews on Steam started at a disastrous 57 percent at launch, they are now globally at 81 percent and even at 86 percent positive in German reviews.
Quick updates with the right improvements
What is behind the positive turnaround? On the one hand, the positive trend in reviews can certainly be explained by the fact that more and more players are accumulating playtime and thus becoming more aware of the strengths of Crimson Desert, which we also rave about in our experience report.
On the other hand, Pearl Abyss delivered timely updates after the launch that addressed many of the weaknesses that parts of the community had extensively discussed on Reddit and elsewhere. A few examples:
- There is now a personal storage chest in the camp.
- After the trouble with AI characters in the world, the developers apologized and removed them.
- There are more permanent mounts, including polar bear, boar, deer, wolf, and ibex.
- The stamina consumption while gliding has been noticeably reduced – this was also requested by MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz.
- Cooking is no longer as uncomfortable as it was at release.
- Theft is now more rewarding and no longer negatively impacts reputation.
- Performance, controls, loading times, and balancing have been significantly improved.
- There are more fast travel points in the world.
- You no longer have to constantly mash a button to sprint.
How does the community evaluate this? Just take a look at this discussion on Reddit about the latest update. More than 12,000 thumbs up and over 1,650 comments show how well the current patch strategy from Pearl Abyss is received by many players.
- Syarafuddyn celebrates, “They listen and deliver. The best dev team ever.”
- Swimming-Ad-6842 is especially happy about one thing: “Gliding is so much better now.”
- Schamolians101 also admits, “I’m not a big fan of certain aspects of this game, but they listen to us. The developers obviously care about their game.”
- iang000 explains: “If they keep this up in the next 3 months, it will be a completely different game.”
How do you evaluate the previous patches of Crimson Desert? And what aspects should the developers improve? Let us know in the comments! Unfortunately, one thing that can’t be improved is the quality of the story and characters. One who was there live during the creation reveals what happened: “Kliff” reveals the truth behind the shallow story of Crimson Desert, explaining: Without him, it would have been even worse
