TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
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Crimson Desert has finally arrived and, upon contact with the gaming public writ large, appears to be a mixed bag—we gave it an 80 in our Crimson Desert review, with our own Mollie Taylor dubbing it both "a game for the sickos" and "full of archaic design choices that only make sense when you remember Pearl Abyss has been maintaining an MMO for 12 years."
This is a game bloated to bursting with systems, which both lends it its own form of madcap charm and bogs it down—and to support the grist of said systems, Pearl Abyss has constructed a control scheme from the pages of an ancient wizard's spellbook, married with some occasional moon logic that expects you to just intuit a 12-step program to solve a puzzle, or get a pet dog or something.
That unwieldiness seems to be the driving factor behind a mixed reception on Steam, despite launching to a 24-hour peak of around 239,000 players at the time of writing. Taking a peek at the negative reviews, we can see the controls and systems bloat crop up time and time again:
"Want to talk to an NPC? You need to press multiple buttons. Doesn't matter if most modern games just have you press E or F," writes one player. "Puzzles are literal atrocities," writes another, adding: "The visuals from The Magic Energy are so everywhere that it's often unclear did you activate a thing or it's just effects that are bouncing off a non-interactable one."
Even if you play the game on controller (and you should play the game on controller), Crimson Desert is still prone to misinputs and clunky fumbling because there's so many damn things you can do. This means the combat's deep and satisfying, mind—I'm enjoying learning my ways around my sword combos.
I am enjoying learning how to loot efficiently far less. And if I were going into this game without looking at things like our handy tips guide (wink wink, nudge nudge) I wouldn't know a ton of basic stuff the game utterly neglected to tell me. For instance, did you know you need to ring bell towers in towns to have your map revealed for you? Pearl Abyss didn't tell me that.
Our guides writer Sean Martin, who has been putting a frankly herculean amount of time into this game to try and figure all these systems out, had to tell me. This all leads to a game that I reckon is going t...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
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Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Crimson Desert has finally arrived and, upon contact with the gaming public writ large, appears to be a mixed bag—we gave it an 80 in our Crimson Desert review, with our own Mollie Taylor dubbing it both "a game for the sickos" and "full of archaic design choices that only make sense when you remember Pearl Abyss has been maintaining an MMO for 12 years."
This is a game bloated to bursting with systems, which both lends it its own form of madcap charm and bogs it down—and to support the grist of said systems, Pearl Abyss has constructed a control scheme from the pages of an ancient wizard's spellbook, married with some occasional moon logic that expects you to just intuit a 12-step program to solve a puzzle, or get a pet dog or something.
That unwieldiness seems to be the driving factor behind a mixed reception on Steam, despite launching to a 24-hour peak of around 239,000 players at the time of writing. Taking a peek at the negative reviews, we can see the controls and systems bloat crop up time and time again:
"Want to talk to an NPC? You need to press multiple buttons. Doesn't matter if most modern games just have you press E or F," writes one player. "Puzzles are literal atrocities," writes another, adding: "The visuals from The Magic Energy are so everywhere that it's often unclear did you activate a thing or it's just effects that are bouncing off a non-interactable one."
Even if you play the game on controller (and you should play the game on controller), Crimson Desert is still prone to misinputs and clunky fumbling because there's so many damn things you can do. This means the combat's deep and satisfying, mind—I'm enjoying learning my ways around my sword combos.
I am enjoying learning how to loot efficiently far less. And if I were going into this game without looking at things like our handy tips guide (wink wink, nudge nudge) I wouldn't know a ton of basic stuff the game utterly neglected to tell me. For instance, did you know you need to ring bell towers in towns to have your map revealed for you? Pearl Abyss didn't tell me that.
Our guides writer Sean Martin, who has been putting a frankly herculean amount of time into this game to try and figure all these systems out, had to tell me. This all leads to a game that I reckon is going t...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?