A bunch of previews for Crimson Desert have just dropped and most are raving about what could be one of the most impressive open world games of the generation — but guess what? We're still waiting on that all-important console footage.
PS5 players are currently citing new footage that's taken from the official PlayStation Blog, which features a collection of fairly short clips — but there's no clarification of what platform the open world adventure is actually running on.
Concerns over console performance have been rampant, primarily because we're yet to see uncut gameplay running on anything other than a high end PC.
The PlayStation Blog's article does, however, confirm that Crimson Desert will make use of PSSR — Sony's AI-based upscaler — on PS5 Pro. The preview says this allows the open world title to "hit 4K resolutions at higher frame rates".
And yes, it sounds like this is a case of another title — after Resident Evil Requiem — cracking out PSSR 2, the upgraded tech that's launching in full at some point this month.
Unfortunately, no technical specifications have been provided, so we still don't know what graphical modes or settings the game will offer, and we don't know what frame rates or resolutions it's trying to target.
There's just one mention of the base PS5 in the PlayStation Blog's write-up. It reads: "Pearl Abyss also told me it optimised Crimson Desert for the PS5 through a number of features to help maintain all that detail at its large scale, making use of Geometry Shader Oversubscription and NGG Culling to render lots of elements without losing detail."
Elsewhere, a preview from a Korean YouTube channel states that they got to play the game on a standard PS5 — but the recording of footage wasn't allowed.
It was apparently utilising a quality mode that "felt" like it was hitting 40 frames-per-second, or thereabouts — but it's admittedly difficult to put much stock into these claims when, again, we don't have the video evidence to back it up.
As for general preview impressions, both gaming publications, such as IGN, and content creators, like Skill Up, seem to be blown away by a lot of what Crimson Desert is doing.
We've seen huge amounts of praise for its massive open world and how interactive everything is — and its gameplay depth is meant to have insane potential.
But on the other hand, there are some worries over just how overwhelming the game can be. There's apparently very little in the way of tutorials or hints — which might sound refreshing, but as alluded, Crimson Desert is utterly stacked with systems and mechanics.
We've said it before, but this feels like one of those releases where you'll need to play it for yourself before jumping to any conclusions. Pearl Abyss clearly has something that could be incredibly special on its hands here — but it could also be a really tough game to wrap your head around.
How do you feel about all of this? Are you excited for Crimson Desert, or is caution still the way forward? Dropkick your way into the comments section below.