Crimson Desert hits 4 million sales despite rocky launch

[midian182]

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.

Permalink to story:

Crimson Desert hits 4 million sales despite rocky launch

 

[ScottSoapbox]

“It is Now That's What I Call Gaming plucked off a gas station shelf”

What does that even mean?

Admittedly I don’t spend any time perusing the bookstands in gas stations but whut?!

 

[m4a4]

Disappointed that you also took this dishonest premise that it was "imitating Cyberpunk 2077 and No Man's Sky".
Technically, the game is stable and runs fine (even on console), unlike day one Cyberpunk with their refunds. Features-wise, it is "complete" and what was promised, unlike NMS and their deceptive features videos before launch.

There were some day one patches that were desperately needed for controls, but otherwise, it's almost like implying it fixed up "at a much faster pace" means that it wasn't like the latter at all.


That said, I'm hoping Denuvo gets removed soon. But while I wait, I'll gladly let them get in more QoL updates before I buy the game.

 

[vicsrealms]

Games looks fun. My only issue with the game is that they put Denuvo on it. When they remove it, I will pick it up on the cheap.

 

[James321]

Remove Denuvo and they might actually get more sales.

 

[daffy duck]

I've been watching playthroughs and the main issue I have with the game, it the terrible overacting by the NPC's. It's often cringeworthy seeing hysterical overreactions and childish acting.

 

[Badvok]

Douse ain't wrong, he sums it up perfectly.

 

[lonetac]

Love the game, its a ton of fun.

 

[Axeia]

Who still pays attention to anything other than user reviews anyway?

All the 'critics' for media in general (movies, series and games alike) seem to be paid for. If it's Western and from a major studio it's amazing and gets at least a 7 out of 10 (or 3.5 out of 5 stars) but usually a 8+.
If it's from an indie studio with a previous success - same thing (to boost their credibility - even if they rated a predecessor poorly).
If it's from a non-western studio, new indie studio or even solo dev it get a 5-7 out of 10.

The article reads either like narrative propaganda praising the LGBTQ+ representation (even if it's in ancient Japan or other inappropriate place) or AI slop (or both). And the 'critic' likely got assigned about 6-20hrs to both play the game and write the article which often means they didn't get very far.

---

At least with games it's simple, just read the steam reviews. Unless they're overwhelmingly negative chances are it's decent. If they're overwhelming positive it's a bange. For anime anidb.info is pretty accurate.
For movies/series... it's a lost cause unless you exclusively watch stuff rated like 8.5+ on imdb you'll run into a lot of turds.