Pearl Abyss has announced it's delaying its ambitious RPG Crimson Desert to the first quarter of next year, meaning it's now set to arrive on PS5 between January and March of 2026.
The open worlder was slated to arrive later this year, and it sounds like a final release date was planned to be confirmed during next week's Gamescom Opening Night Live showcase. However, the developer now needs more time to sort out its "schedule coordination and collaborations with multiple partners for offline distribution, voice-overs, console certification, and other launch preparations".
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News of the delay was shared at the start of Pearl Abyss' Q2 2025 earnings conference call, documented by Gematsu. "We sincerely apologize for not being able to meet the originally promised fourth quarter launch schedule," the studio continued. "Please kindly understand that this is a strategic decision aimed at ensuring success on a meaningful scale."
"The release date has been internally confirmed for Q1 2026. However, given the change in launch timing, we will announce the date at a more appropriate time based on business considerations, rather than making an announcement at Gamescom next week. We are grateful for your continued interest in our company, and we will do our utmost to deliver an even better experience going forward."
Crimson Desert has always appeared incredibly ambitious in trailers and gameplay footage, offering a huge open world and a huge amount of systems and mechanics to engage with. We got to sample the game at Gamescom last year, and came away both overwhelmed and impressed.
"Now Black Myth: Wukong is a reality, there's proof these 'too good to be true' titles of recent years can actually be fantastic games," we said at the time. "There's a good chance Crimson Desert will follow in Game Science's footsteps."