Crimson Desert review: A game that promised the world and mostly delivered

We've been here so many times before - when something promises the world, it usually falls way short, especially in gaming.

There's usually a game that comes along that just sounds way too good to be true. Usually it is, at least to begin with, rightfully leading to increased skepticism on future highly ambitious titles.

But thankfully, at least on PC anyway, this is not the case with Pearl Abyss' Crimson Desert and the studio has delivered a truly great title with hundreds of hours of quality content.

While it isn't perfect and there is room for refinement in some areas, developers should be hugely commended for attempting something this ambitious and pulling off the majority of what they've set out to do with aplomb.

For this review, a PC code was provided by the publisher and I played this on my gaming PC, which has AMD RYZEN 7 9800X3D CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU, 32GB RAM and 2TB SSD on an ASUS ROG STRIX XG27ACMS 27" monitor.

Crimson Desert has hundreds and hundreds of hours of thoroughly engaging content / Pearl Abyss

Crimson Desert is a fantastic single-player role-playing sandbox. If you're coming to Crimson Desert for a high quality, rich and in-depth story, you won't necessarily find that here.

It does develop as the game goes on with some decent twists along the way but for me, the narrative structure doesn't act as anything more than something to hang fantastic gameplay, world building and engaging characters from, which makes it feel a bit like an MMO.

Combat is simply incredible with deep, complex mechanics and so many different ways to take down enemies of all shapes, sizes and varieties. Be warned though, these enemies can take you out in some creative and unexpected ways too.

Movement can be quite slow on foot with controls not quite as precise as you'd expect in sections where a bit of platforming is required. It occasionally left me feeling frustrated but did not massively diminish my experience.

But when more traversal options open up the deeper into the game you go, Crimson Desert is a joy to explore and navigate across, even with how long it can take to get from one side to the other due to how big this game's world is.

Without spoiling anything too much, Kliff isn't the only character you get to play as either.

Combat in Crimson Desert is superb / Pearl Abyss

There's very little in the way of handholding in Crimson Desert, across combat and exploration. This is very refreshing, especially when there's not always a step-by-step guide of what to do next and how to do it.

It can feel daunting at first, especially with how incredibly steep the learning curve is over the first portion of the game, how much there is to do, how huge it is and some missing quality of life features such as automatic inventory management.

But it's absolutely worth taking your time and getting to grips with what's asked for you as you have so much freedom to do and explore everything you want. Every player will be able to enjoy their own unique experiences and learning as you go along makes Crimson Desert incredibly fun.

Speaking of how big the game is, it isn't lifeless in the slightest. You can interact with pretty much any NPC and the world feels vibrant, lived in and as though it's evolving all the time.

Sure, there are great expanses with not that many NPCs in them, but there's still so much to uncover and explore in these areas that they offer a different yet positive experience in addition to areas like castles, towns and villages which are much more dense and where you can pick up quick random jobs for rewards.

This quest variety, both across main and side quests, is right up there among the best. One moment, you'll be taking on the most fearsome and brutal enemies doing their best to rip you in half. The next, you'll be cleaning a chimney or rescuing a sheep.

Crimson Desert's landscapes are nothing short of spectacular / Pearl Abyss

Visually, Crimson Desert is absolutely stunning - from a far enough distance away.

Landscapes, draw distances, cinematic boss battles and the sheer amount of what's happening on screen at any one time are some of the best visual feasts I've seen in a game.

But zoom in more and specific details are nowhere near as strong in comparison. A bit of a lack of detail and polish in certain areas might explain why Crimson Desert has a much more zoomed out third-person perspective than what you'd usually see.

Shadows and lighting in some areas does not react the way you'd expect at all and I encountered frequent pop-ins of smaller textures as I progressed through the world. And this was on a higher end gaming PC.

Having said that, I did not experience any noticeable frame rates or stutters while playing Crimson Desert.

As for the music, Crimson Desert has one of the best soundtracks I've come across. Despite how big this game is, the music regularly made me take note of just how perfectly it accompanies different scenarios throughout. It's a huge highlight.

Crimson Desert is best described as an uncut diamond / Pearl Abyss

Crimson Desert is a game that promised the world and has mostly delivered it, solely taking the PC version of Crimson Desert into account.

I say this because although there has been a look at some base PS5 gameplay in the days leading up to launch and while performance looks promising, it's not definitively clear how the game will look visually across base PS5 and Xbox consoles at launch.

But focusing on the PC build, the best way I can describe Crimson Desert is an uncut diamond.

It genuinely has some of the best landscapes, combat mechanics and one of the best open worlds I've seen in a game but has some aspects that are a bit rough around the edges such as movement on foot not quite being up to expectations, lighting details that took me out of the immersion and frequent texture pop-ins.

Either way, Crimson Desert is a truly great game that offers hundreds and hundreds of hours of quality content with regular jaw dropping gameplay moments and is an absolute blast to play through.

9/10

Crimson Desert is out on 19 March on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Elsewhere from indy100:

• Crimson Desert base PS5 gameplay finally revealed ahead of launch
• Crimson Desert PS5 Pro performance analysis is dividing opinion

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.