What just happened? Crimson Desert had a difficult launch. Most reviews failed to live up to the years of hype that built up around the RPG, but as we've seen many times before, games can quickly turn a poor start into a success. Just ask developer Pearl Abyss, which is celebrating Crimson Desert hitting four million sales in just under two weeks.
Crimson Desert, which was one of our Most Anticipated Games of 2026, arrived to review scores of between 60 and 70 in most cases. It also held a disappointing Steam user rating of Mostly Positive. The failure to meet expectations resulted in developer Pearl Abyss' shares falling almost 29%.
Pearl Abyss was also dealing with controversy over Crimson Desert not working on Intel Arc GPUs, and was forced to apologize for the appearance of AI-generated placeholder art that ended up in the final game.
Related reading: Crimson Desert Optimization: Best Settings for Performance and Visual Quality
But even with all this going on, Crimson Desert has remained the top selling paid-for game on Steam. Importantly, there have been several updates and hotfixes released since launch that have addressed some of the problems, and Pearl Abyss says it will be making changes to the divisive controls.
It appears that Crimson Desert could be imitating Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man's Sky by bouncing back from a rocky launch, albeit at a much faster pace. The game has now reached a Very Positive rating on Steam, with 85% of the 37,364 user reviews being positive.
Hitting four million sales so quickly is also a huge milestone, especially when you consider this is Pearl Abyss' first singleplayer game. The official X account thanked players for all their "incredible love and support."
– Crimson Desert (@CrimsonDesert_) April 1, 2026
Not everyone is celebrating Crimson Desert's success. Larian's publishing director, Michael Douse, who's no stranger to speaking his mind, called Pearl Abyss' game a "cynical amalgamation of borrowed mechanics."
"It is Now That's What I Call Gaming plucked off a gas station shelf, for better & worse. Expect a lot more of this in premium & F2P. There is less risk in it," he added, though he later insisted Crimson Desert is by no means bad, and is actually fun.
– Very AFK (@Cromwelp) March 28, 2026
Are you playing Crimson Desert? Does it live up to the hype? Let us know in the comments below.