Crimson Desert Launch: Stunning Graphics Can't Hide the Game's Lackluster Depth, Critics Say
Already tomorrow — March 20 — the release of Crimson Desert will take place.
This incredibly ambitious and large-scale action RPG has been in development for many years, repeatedly postponed, and its concept was rethought since the game was originally created as a spin-off of the popular MMORPG Black Desert — another game by the Korean studio Pearl Abyss. Developers did not shy away from making loud statements, promised a deep plot, huge open world, incredible variety of mechanics, complex combat system, and excellent graphics. Finally, critics have published their reviews, and not everything is so rosy in them.
What is Known
Crimson Desert received high ratings on aggregators — 78 points on Metacritic and 80 points with 80% recommendations on Opencritic (PC versions). This is a decent result by itself, but further perception of the game depends on what you expect from it.
Reviewers were divided in their opinions regarding the main elements of Crimson Desert: it indeed has cool graphics, but a lot of bugs, a large open world, but most players find it uninteresting to explore, a prolonged plot, but it is absolutely undeveloped and not captivating, many characters and events in the story, but they do not evoke any emotions, a huge variety of mechanics, but they do not harmonize with each other, many activities, but doing them is boring.
In general, Crimson Desert exhibits the traits typical of a Korean MMORPG: it's big, beautiful, but the player has to entertain themselves. Such a concept has the right to exist, but it clashes with the fact that this is a single-player game, and content that looks good in an online format may quickly become boring in this case. This thesis was also confirmed by the authoritative journalist Jason Schreier, who spent several hours in Crimson Desert, but found all that time boring.
I've only played a few hours of the much-hyped Crimson Desert, so weight my opinion accordingly, but those few hours were so boring and soulless that I absolutely did not want to play anymore. Feels like a game designed for people who just want to Consume Content.
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social) March 18, 2026, 23:13
Already on March 20, gamers will have their say, but something tells us that Crimson Desert will not become a contender for the title of “Game of the Year” as journalists previously stated, and certainly won't be a competitor to GTA VI.
The game will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series.
For Those Who Want to Know More
Source: Metacritic, Opencritic