Crimson Desert was released on March 19, 2026, with mixed reviews, with just over half of the reviews on Steam being positive. A week later, the situation changed significantly.
What has changed since the release? The morning after the launch, the developers at Pearl Abyss had reason to celebrate, but also a lot of work ahead. Despite the late launch, player numbers were high, but only 57 percent of the reviews on Steam were positive. On Metacritic, the average review scores were better, but still not in the 80s.
Since then, quite a bit has happened:
- There have been important improvements through updates, which brought features such as a storage system and improved controls.
- Many of the buyers have since accumulated significantly more hours, allowing them to better assess the strengths and weaknesses of Crimson Desert – the result: continuously increasing user reviews on Steam. In the German ratings, Crimson Desert has even reached a “Very Positive” rating, with 81 percent positive evaluations.
- A few hours ago, the developers celebrated 3 million units sold of Crimson Desert on X.
- Last weekend, there was a new peak for Crimson Desert on Steam: 248,530 players were simultaneously in Pywel (source: steamdb.info). At launch, there were 239,045 players.
Crimson Desert is steadily gaining favor with players after a rocky start and is becoming a major success for Pearl Abyss.
“Now I even think about the game when I’m not playing.”
How does the community react to this change? In several discussions on Reddit, many players celebrate the rising ratings and the way the developers respond to community feedback – with thousands of thumbs up and hundreds of comments.
- morenocir writes in his post on Reddit: “This game is amazing, I honestly can’t get enough of it. It’s a really entertaining action sandbox game that combines popular mechanics from other titles. Yes, it still has weaknesses, but you can tell the developers are working to fix them and further develop the game.”
- levinyl is experiencing a unique gaming experience, on Reddit he explains: “I’ve never had it happen that I just walked in a game instead of running.”
- One-Fail-1 describes on Reddit: “In the first hours, I was close to returning the game… now I even think about the game when I’m not playing.”
- Ka-Is-A-Wheelie only has one wish on Reddit: “Now make these special mounts permanent.”
Ka-Is-A-Wheelie addresses a wish of many players. After the trailers, there was the impression that alongside horses, raptors, bears, and other exotic mounts could be permanently obtained. This is not the case; they are currently more like momentary gimmicks. You can find out more here: Crimson Desert promised special mounts before release, now many players feel misled
