Everything you need to know before Crimson Desert’s launch. A complete breakdown of tech specs, offline modes, supported controllers, and platform editions.
What is Crimson Desert?
This one will be short. Every fan already knows not to expect a deep RPG from this game. Crimson Desert is a third-person action-adventure single-player game from Pearl Abyss. It is set in the open-world fictional continent of Pywel.
The narrative follows Kliff and his fellow Greymanes during a period of conflict. It offers visceral combat, deep progression systems, free exploration, a ton of secrets to discover and mysteries to solve.
Available Platforms and Editions
Crimson Desert is available on all major platforms. This includes PC (Steam, Epic), Playstation 5 and Playstation 5 Pro, Xbox Series X|S, Mac, and GeForce Now.
The digital and physical editions of the game only vary in the number of goodies added on top of the game. And the price, of course.
The Standard (70 USD) and Digital Deluxe (80 USD) editions are available on all stores. The Collector’s Edition comes with a bunch of physical items, including an awesome dragon statue. But it also has a high price tag of 280 USD.
Every player will have access to the same gameplay content, systems and mechanics. It is up to you to decide if it’s worth spending a few bucks extra for additional cosmetics. Our Crimson Desert Editions guide will give you more insight and tips if you are having hard time deciding.
If you want to upgrade from Standard to Deluxe edition later, you will be able to purchase the Deluxe Pack as a separate bundle. Direct switching of editions is not possible. By purchasing this pack, you will acquire the exact same items that are part of the Deluxe Edition.
The game does not support cross-platform progress at launch and there has been no official announcement if and when it might be available. The only exception is Xbox. If you purchase through the Xbox Store, you will be able to play it both on PC and on your console thanks to “Xbox Play Anywhere” feature.
The game is currently available for preorder at the time of this publication. You can also preload it. Its large size of ~150 GB and beefy day-1 patch can put a strain on your network and patience if you are eager to start playing sooner and have already pre-ordered the game. Check the exact launch times for your region.
Performance Tech and PC Controller support
Crimson Desert scales accordingly, depending on your platform of choice and its hardware capabilities. It can run on aging GPUs from years ago all the way to 5080+.
Digital Foundry analyzed an early build of the game, not including latest Nvidia drivers and day 1 patch). Both the PC and PlayStation 5 Pro versions look stunningly beautiful and run smoothly enough to quality for a great experience.
We only recently got our very first view of the game on regular PlayStation 5. It was from the Japanese PlayStation YouTube channel, and the video was only limited to 1080p (this is low for 2026!). It was difficult to judge from that video as the bitrate was causing quite the mess at times.
The game looks unbelievably good on a high-end PC, but it will look decent and run smooth on consoles as well. You should not expect wonders from the proprietary Black Space engine. This game is an easy candidate for “best looking game ever”, but its performance will still be limited by hardware. It’s not bad at all, just limited by the consoles’ aging hardware.
The current generation consoles simply doesn’t have the hardware power to match. Still, the game looks and behaves very adequately on PlayStation 5 Pro with a lot of the bells and whistles turned on.
Crimson Desert supports the modern upscalers:
- PC: FSR 3/4, DLSS 4/4.5, AMD FSR Ray Gen, NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction.
- Consoles: Upgraded PSSR for PS5 Pro; FSR 3 for base PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
- Mac: MetalFX Upscaler, Frame Generation, and Denoiser.
If you struggle to achieve the framerate threshold you find comfortable for yourself, this tech will be of use to you. Keep in mind that Frame Generation is exclusive to PC and Mac only. This isn’t news though.
The developers actually recommend that you play Crimson Desert with a controller. Even on PC. Xbox controllers are fully supported, while PlayStation DualSense requires a wired USB connection to function.
As someone who is worse than a baby with a controller in his hands, I will most definitely be playing Crimson Desert with the traditional keyboard and mouse. Not only because I am better with KBM, but because it allows for great customization of keybindings.
Connectivity and Offline Play
Crimson Desert will have a Day 1 patch. It will be very large, this is also industry standard now (for good or evil). It will require internet connection to download that patch. After that, you will be able to play the game offline without internet connection.
The game will undoubtedly receive (optional) post-launch updates. Internet connection will be required to download those patches as well. Once again, after you finish updating, you can go back offline.
Language Support and Regional Caveats
Crimson Desert is available in 14 languages in total: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish (Spain), Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish (Latin America), Traditional Chinese, Portuguese (Brazil) and Turkish.
The game is fully voiced in three of those languages: English, Korean, and Simplified Chinese.
When Pearl Abyss announced the main cast of Crimson Desert a few weeks ago, I personally had a very strong positive vibe. Kliff is voiced in English by Alex Newman, who you should know as Adam Smasher in Cyberpunk 2077.
The other two playable characters also have recognizable and beloved voices. Stewart Scudamore (Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine II) gave his voice to Oonkga. Damiane is voiced by Rebecca Hanssen (Queen Meve herself from The Witcher TV Series).
It is important to note that physical editions purchased outside of the Asia region do not support Traditional or Simplified Chinese text. If you play digitally, however, all languages are supported regardless of region.
Gameplay Mechanics and Features
Crimson Desert will throw a million systems and mechanics in your face. The game might have a steeper learning curve in the first couple of hours when you have to learn a lot of new movements and systems.
This is in stark contrast to most of the popular modern open-world games, such as Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Ghost of Yotei, or Horizon Forbidden West.
And another thing, don’t expect to be hand-held all the time. There are puzzles and challenging moments that you will have only yourself to rely on.
The good news here is that if you struggle with a tough encounter, you can always go explore and come back with better equipment and more experience to tackle the challenge. If you are struggling with a weird puzzle or boss, you can always look up our guides for tips and solutions.
Crimson Desert has no difficulty settings and no levels. You are free to roam the gigantic map whenever you want, and however you desire.
Your character’s progress is not measured in levels and experience points. Instead, you will rely on learning new abilities to expand your combat arsenal and back all that up with high quality gear.
There are a ton of distractions in Crimson Desert. Besides the free and rewarding exploration and tons of secrets, you can participate in various mini games, craft, cook, harvest, etc.
While you do not get to create your own character, a high level of customizaiton and plenty of skins, armors, heairstyles and colors are available for you to tweak Kliff, Oonkga and Damiane to your liking.
Each of Crimson Desert’s three playable characters wield their own unique selection of weapons and combat styles to utilize while exploring Pywel.
What made us so excited about Crimson Desert?
I asked our coverage team to share their thoughts and reasons behind their decision to play and cover Crimson Desert. Will you find ours and your personal reasons matching and aligning?
