PS5 Hit Crimson Desert Might Have Divided Opinion, But It's Cracked 4 Million Sales in Two Weeks

I’ve not played it yet. But damn does it look right up my alley. I’ll likely wait for a sale. But with this amount of success, who knows when that’ll be.

From steam reviews and metacritic user reviews there is no divided opinion. The game is easy GOTY contender with RES 9

I will get it eventually. Currently have installed doom dark ages, ninja gaiden 4, and requiem. And looking forward to Saros so this might have to wait a while

I've had the game a little over a week, and there's been about 3 updates in that time, ranging from a couple GB to a few hundred MB. Seems like they are beavering away at it.

But anyone interested, but holding off due to performance on base PS5, it's absolutely fine. There are annoying things, but it plays smoothly and I've not hit any issue that impedes the game.

Besides:

• Teeny tiny text which makes reading any lore a chore
• controls that have me jumping on dogs when I mean to pet them, or flying when I just want to double jump.

But I'm sure they'll be ironed out (the issues, not the dogs)

"As mentioned, Crimson Desert hasn't won over everybody"

What game has? And it's certainly won over most people not associated with games journalism, as evidenced by user reviews across the board.

Speaking of which, when Pearl Abyss' stock dropped sharply following media reviews you guys made an article with the quickness, but now that their stock has rebounded and is at an all-time historical high, there hasn't been a peep about that. Makes one wonder.

Good for them. They deserve it. It's crazy that you sell more copies when you listen to your customers & improve the game... Western devs should take notice

@Xodan it sold over two million before the first patch dropped ,what are you on about 😂 they where also working on that first patch a week before launch thats why it dropped 72hrs after , people think theyre some sort of super devs who changed the game on the whim of customers , dont forget those patches have to be approved also by sony , microsoft etc.

Hyper genuinely still works, doesn't it? I'm actually surprised.

@lazarus11 Yeah, but now it's double. Started strong & keeps going strong. It's not luck.

@Xodan great game keeps selling as word of mouth gets out , who would've thought, marathon got two weeks to allow extra polish and various patches after its release, before ign gave it a massive 9...not helped its sales though.

Can anyone tell my why this game is dividing opinion of people??
It looks like many other action type games that have come out before so what is it about game?
Im not seeing what up??

@Marquez push squares mother site ign gave the same exact score. Coincidence?!

@Hyena_socks

Pushsquare noted serious performance issues on base PS5 in performance mode.

DF have openly and clearly stated they do NOT recommend playing on base PS5 in performance mode due to both Framerate issues and visual quality.

The framerate issues alone would easily prevent people like myself who cannot tolerate framerates less than 60fps.

@Hyena_socks I recently bought a ps5 Pro and this game. I installed it on my ps5 Pro and then on my og ps5 and the difference is big. Usually I'd be the one saying its not that bigger difference but seeing both running in performance and balanced its quite jarring to be honest.

Glad people are enjoying it. I’m still mulling over which platform to buy it for, and waiting for further patches.

By then, there might be discounted keys for PC. On PlayStation, I don’t see this having massive discounts. It will probably hold its value like BG3. I.e. if I’m going to get it on PlayStation, I might as well crack on rather than waiting.

No one ever said it was a bad game, the disagreements came from those who had never played it, but had decided it was a 10 out of 10 before the game had even released.

Unfortunately, they then decided to be slightly less than frank on message boards, and e.g. “accidentally" failed to mention issues such as 10 frames per second slideshows on bosses etc. Granted, those issues were fixed, but it’s damaged trust in user reviews.

@lazarus11 Yes, I will get it also eventually. Your Marathon example is spot on. That's what I implied when said "it's crazy you sell more copies when..."
Crimson Desert is the best example of devs listening & caring about what gamers want.

@Boxmonkey ign have done nothing but try and destroy crimson desert with there passive aggressive tweets and articles , to a certain degree push square are guilty of this as well , is it because they are a Korean dev , is it because they dont use unreal and have been vocal about its shortcomings, who knows

You love to see it! 🫡

Congrats, Pearl Abyss. You certainly deserve the growing sales due to your attentiveness to fan feedback.

Maybe review sites should have waited a month before giving it a score.

@Rich33 you see i have a problem with this , as push square have not been including ps5 versions in there reviews for a while , and then suddenly they do with crimson desert, and mark it down accordingly , I want all reviews to follow this style in the future ,as there are millions of ps5 owners who would appreciate knowing what exactly, is their version going to look and play like.

@Dogbreath Do you have a Pro? Id go for the PS version in that case if it's your preferred platform. Pearl Abyss have been speedily keeping PS players up to date with all the patches. A pretty nice showcase of having a huge, open world with RT let loose and applied everywhere - although that comes with it's own flaws - the ray reconstruction is messy on PC and console atm sadly - although overall I appreciate the effort to implement it all and would personally choose it anyway to enhance atmosphere.

Edit: not that I'm saying the base PS5 version isn't worth it, I just don't have any firsthand experience.

@themightyant Please. Even this very article's title is calling the game divisive, and apparently I'm the one trying to make up a disparity? Games media is hellbent on making this game's reception into something it's not.

You say "plenty of fans and online gamers" didn't like the game (despite the 80%+ positive averages) then you immediately go on to deny there's a split between critic and user opinions (despite the self-evident abundance of middling critic reviews, including this site's).

That's ironic enough, but then outside of reviews there's also plenty of games media write-ups trying to put the game down and diminish its accomplishments (IGN most of all), something so blatant that ignoring it is simply disingenuous. Even this piece of news about the game reaching 4 million sales can't help but repeat several times that "not everybody liked it!" because ultimately that's what they want people to remember about it.

@Old-Red yup, how many times have we seen , 'where is our (game) review' why not this time, bit weird for such a massive world , with so many mechanics and features, its easy a 300 hrs game , definitely not 40

sick of seeing these posts now - if you like the game great and people do - I have 50 hours in and love it, people are invested in it and the sales are showing this - so many people dissing it without playing it, take the punt and enjoy - no game is perfect

@Old-Red Interesting point. It seems that reviewing day one copies is becoming less and less relevant these days.
I am watching this game with interest to see how it develops through patches etc.

These Crimson Desert conspiracy theories are absolutely nuts.

As if we're having a go at the game because the developer's Korean — genuinely one of the most insane takes I've ever seen on this website.

@ShogunRok Yes, shocking take.

@Dogbreath go for it , and then I will enjoy reading your massive fanboy comments about it , like me 😁 youll love it, trust me

Play it or don't play it - You are adults, make up your own mind. I've never seen such petty squabbling over a game before.

Kudos again for them releasing sells numbers. Sales aren’t subscriptions nor player engagement counts. Good for the studio! It’s always a risk launching a new title and hoping it sticks with people. I hope that they have good profits and are past the break even point. I also hope it doesn’t go on sell anytime soon. So that they can make as much as possible for future projects.

Amazing game. Well deserved.

I am 34 hours in and do not understand the praise this game gets.
Every single quest is boring.
Story is non existent.
Kliff is a wet noodle.
The puzzles are just 3d versions of artifex mundi puzzles.
Enemy design is one note. In 34 hours i am fighting the same dudes with just different tunics.
Combat is easy until you fight a boss. But that does not take any skill as you can just brute force them with enough cooking.
Graphics are good, world is gigantic so if you like exploring this is the place to be.
6 seems okay to me.

Ok so Marathon gets praise and 9 out of 10 on this site, Crimson Desert gets criticism and 6 out of 10. Yet Crimson desert has been far more successful. How does a game with a 6 critic review perform so much better than a 9? Its the complete disconnect that creates "conspiracy theories" because people see the obvious contradiction and need to find a way to explain it. You can say oh its just the reviewers opinion but this score disparity is shared throughout a lot of gaming sites so there's a pattern there

@Gaia093 this game has had such an interesting reception. From my perspective seems that it has been judged harder than many other releases. I wish more eastern devs luck as they are bringing interesting stuff to the market! This title is very ambitious and the devs did get it working on the very old 7+ year console chipsets. They have had various performance modes. Being a gamer of many years, each generation has had an ambitious game which the devs didn’t want the throttle back their vision all the way. I remember when the Witcher 3 came out. It was still playable to me and I enjoyed it. Despite the performance being not good on xbox. Anyways there is a disconnect between gamers, random YouTube critics and mainstream critics. Lastly, I think people should learn to not take critics seriously especially if the taste of the critics doesn’t match with one’s own. I’d never take beer advice from someone whom doesn’t like premium Belgian beer like me for example.

I'm pretty interested in this game, I just find it very frustrating that it seems to run like hot garbage on console that isn't a Pro.

Waiting for a steep sale as it sounds like that's what the product is worth.