Crimson Desert Reviewed Poorly Because of How Reviews Are Done, Not Because of the Game

Crimson Desert has caused an explosion of hot takes since its release on March 19th, 2026. I'm here to add some more fuel to the fire. I don't believe Crimson Desert is a game that can be reviewed over the course of two weeks.

I don't really think it's a game that can be reviewed over the course of two months either. This is a game unlike any we've seen in quite some time, and it's time to talk about why it's been so polarizing.

A Massive Undertaking

This is one of those journeys that is Skyrim-sized, and as a player of Skyrim from day one, I have over 800 hours in that game in its various forms, from flat screen to VR, and I've never seen Sovngarde, and I've never even fought Alduin. That's the type of scale Bethesda was playing with back then, and it's the same deal for Pearl Abyss with its open-world behemoth of a game, Crimson Desert.

Generally, you get two weeks or so to review a game, with exceptions here and there. Our own Christian Bognar put a gargantuan 122 hours into this one, and even he'll tell you that there is still so much more to see and do. Then there are articles out with things like "15 hours into Crimson Desert, and I've seen enough." While everyone is entitled to their opinion, 15 hours in this game is like 30 minutes into most games. You haven't seen enough. You haven't seen anything. Because in Crimson Desert, like in life, good things come to those who wait.

It's a staggering scale here that isn't meant to be binged. There are YouTubers who try to 100 percent games before they drop a review. This game may honestly ruin them, physically and mentally. I've seen a trend so far: most critics have been lukewarm to decently happy with the game, which explains the 79/100 score on OpenCritic, but content creators and those who have spent more time with the game are much more positive on it, hence the insane amount of videos flooding our algorithms with the game daily.

Hell, I'm 55 hours in, and I've barely left the opening area of Hernand. I see both sides pretty clearly, and I know where I'm planting my flag. I've put a ton of time into playing it so far, and I'm not rushing; I'm taking it all in, letting the scenery and the mysteries unravel organically, dipping in and out of the story, which is clearly building to something off the wall nuts.

The Disconnect

I honestly don't know how I'd feel if I had to review this one in a time crunch span. Burnout is a real thing when it comes to anything creative or work-related. When you're combining the two on a scale like this? It's easy to see how some just gave up or didn't understand the assignment. If I were the one reviewing this game? I think I'd have some mixed feelings on it, too. But I'd also have those feelings if I were the one reviewing The Witcher 3 or Tears of the Kingdom. These are 5-season TV shows, not meant to be binged in the same month you start them. Realistically, to understand the true quality of the content here, I'd be putting in 9 hours daily. That's not only insane, it's also unhealthy and a recipe for getting sick of something, no matter how special it is.

That type of mindset is where I think we're seeing a lot of these negative reviews come from. People who treated playing the game as a job, rather than, you know, a game. The ones who played it just to finish it, not to live in it, did not really know what this game was going for. And then they found out that this wasn't a game they've seen before, and didn't take the time to fully understand it.

This was a slow burn, but not one from a company that had given them the faith to push through it, like, say, Rockstar. ​​​​They were disappointed, and obviously so. But be honest with yourselves, if Red Dead Redemption 2 was made by a relatively unknown company, and you had to play through that snow-covered, slower-than-slow opening, would you have viewed it as favorably or given it the same chance to get better? My guess is no. But Pearl Abyss doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.

An Experience Against Expectations

I imagine a healthy handful of reviewers likely went in expecting this triple-A looking experience to have the intuitiveness that's become expected from AAA open-world games, but appearances are deceiving. Crimson Desert a game that looks triple-A but has indie quirks, jank, and charm. You're not going to be told where the cool weapon is, or where the cool side quest is, or where even something as simple as a boat is.

It's all on you. You have the full agency in Crimson Desert to travel a mostly boring path or set out on an adventure that will fuel you for months. But that right there is the point. If you don't take your time with this game, it's easy to see where the 6/10s and the like came in. It's an absurdly large experience where the main story takes 60+ hours to finish on its own. If you're only there for the main story and a couple of side quests, well, you're missing the point, and it's not going to be anyone who plays in that way that's game of the year.

However, if you go off and treat this game like Skyrim, The Witcher 3, or Breath of the Wild, and let it breathe a bit, taking it in bit by bit, dedicating a night to building up your camp to see how amazingly in depth it gets, or maybe seeing if all those bounties might lead to something cool (hint: it does), that is where the rewards truly start to drop in Crimson Desert.

It's a game that is deeper than it has any right to be, and one that the internet is experiencing together, and finding new stuff together. From bosses, to weapons, to abilities, to unique combos, to unique puzzles. Remember the last time we did this? A little game called Elden Ring. It summons that type of wonder and that type of community. That's not an easy feat, and it deserves praise for that aspect alone.

The Aftermath and the Victor

I think Pearl Abyss might have made a mistake by only giving reviewers a short period with this game. They made a game on the scale of an MMO and expected some to no-life the game before getting their reviews out. They should've had at minimum a month to experience this one. It's clear as day because as the days go on, the reviews have skyrocketed.

On day one, this game was a fire starter. Words like flop and too good to be true were thrown around like crazy. The Steam reviews were sitting at mixed, and now? They sit in a sparkling, very positive place. It's a testament to playing a game that's clearly beyond the scale of anything we've seen in years, and giving it the chance to spread its wings.

There have been some that honestly seem like they don't want you to enjoy this game, including an article that explains why Crimson Desert missed the mark and if it can make 'a comeback', though how it can do that is unclear. And, look, if I had to time crunch this game with 110 hours over two weeks while juggling other content as well, I'd be miserable. I feel bad for Travis Northup getting the brunt of so much criticism for his review of the game because I just don't believe this game was ever meant to be played in the way he experienced it. To give credit where it's due, Northup is asking for a chance to re-review the game with all the fixes that have been put out.

But to the topic at hand, there is no comeback needed. As of now, Crimson Desert sits at 4 million units sold. It's skyrocketing on the most popular game charts, it's the hottest topic on any Reddit, and it's a game that YouTube content creators are churning out by the boatload. We can write all we want, but history is written by the victors, and here? The players have won.

When the critics said "meh," the players went all in. They managed to wade through the wildly varying review scores that showed everything from a strange disdain for Crimson Desert to unrealistic levels of love from the get-go, and played it for themselves. They didn't judge a book by its cover (and the cover is absolutely awful, but that's neither here nor there) and found an absolute gem of a game with mountains of content. It's clear now that while other games will undoubtedly review better than Crimson Desert this year, it is the people's champion, no matter what the scores on the board say.