Recent reviews by ∆ VEX-2271 ∆

First of all, I want to mention that I may update this review later once I have even more playtime.
At the time of writing this, I have played almost 50 hours, which I think is already enough to give a fair impression of what the game does well and where it still has weaknesses.

After those roughly 50 hours, I can say that Crimson Desert is one of the most interesting, immersive, and visually impressive games I have played in a long time. The game definitely has flaws, but in terms of structure, world design, and the way it trusts the player, it does a lot of things right that modern games rarely dare to do anymore.

Before going into the details, here is my technical setup and experience:

I am playing on a PC with an RTX 4080, Intel Core i5-13600, and 32 GB RAM, on a 39-inch ultrawide monitor at 3440x1440. With ray tracing, RR, and settings close to max, the game runs very smoothly for me at around 100 to 120 FPS. On my system, the performance has been very solid.

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Category - Impression
Gameplay - Strong, rewarding, challenging, and refreshingly old-school
Graphics - Absolutely stunning, especially with ReShade
Mechanics - One of the game’s biggest strengths
Controls - Still too complicated at times, especially early on
Open World - Beautiful, immersive, and full of things to discover
Immersion - Very high, partly because the game does not constantly interrupt itself

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Gameplay is one of the biggest strengths of Crimson Desert for me.

What I like most is that the game does not treat the player like someone who needs every little thing explained step by step. Especially when it comes to puzzles, environmental interaction, and certain mechanics, you actually have to think for yourself, experiment, and figure things out on your own.

The game does explain its systems, yes. But it does not over-explain every single step. It does not constantly hold your hand and tell you exactly where to go, what to press, and how to solve every situation immediately.

And that, to me, feels like the true old-school core of gaming.

Back then, a huge part of the fun was learning through observation, trying things out, making mistakes, and eventually understanding the logic of the game world on your own. Crimson Desert brings that feeling back in a way that very few modern games still do.

A lot of games today feel like nothing more than running from point A to point B, following markers, and checking off tasks like content on a list. To me, that often no longer feels like actually playing.

Crimson Desert goes in a different direction, and that is exactly why it stands out.

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Visually, this is easily one of the most beautiful games I have played so far.

The open world is not just pretty to look at — it genuinely feels built for exploration. You want to look around, stop for a moment, see what is hidden in the distance, and take in the scenery. There is a lot to discover, a lot to interact with, and a lot of visual atmosphere packed into the world.

With ReShade on top, the game looks even more impressive on my setup. Combined with ultrawide at 39 inches, the presentation can look almost cinematic at times. The lighting, landscapes, and overall mood are on an extremely high level.

For me, this is one of the strongest-looking games out there right now.

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This is probably my favorite part of the game.

What makes Crimson Desert stand out is not just that it has good mechanics, but how it uses them. The game gives you tools and systems, but it expects you to understand for yourself when, where, and how to use them properly.

That is something I miss in a lot of modern games.

Here, you still have to actually play.
You still have to think.
You still have to experiment.
You still have to find your own approach.

And to me, that is what real game design should feel like.

This is especially true with the puzzles. I have seen people criticize the game because they get stuck or do not immediately understand what to do. But honestly, I think that says more about modern player habits than about the quality of the game itself.

A lot of players today are so used to games constantly guiding them, marking everything, and basically solving half the experience for them, that the moment a game expects real engagement, it gets called frustrating or badly designed.

I do not think that criticism is fair here.

The fact that Crimson Desert does not spoon-feed everything is not a weakness.
For me, it is one of its biggest strengths.

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Another thing I actually see as a positive is that Kliff does not talk too much.

I have read people complain that the main character does not say enough, but for me that is more of a strength than a problem. I do not need a protagonist who constantly comments on everything happening around him.

That kind of character can work in certain games — for example someone like Nathan Drake in Uncharted, where the tone is lighter and humor is part of the experience.

But in Crimson Desert, Kliff being more restrained actually improves immersion for me. I am not constantly being talked at by the protagonist, and the world gets more room to breathe. In important scenes and dialogues, he says enough.

Less talking works in this game.
It adds to the atmosphere instead of taking away from it.

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My biggest criticism is definitely the controls.

Especially at the beginning, the controls felt awkward, overly complicated, and not always intuitive. Even now, after much more time with the game, I still think the controls are not perfect.

That said, they do get better over time. Once you spend enough hours with the game, things start to feel more natural. But that does not change the fact that the control scheme is still one of the game’s weaker areas.

So yes, this is absolutely a valid criticism.
The controls improve with time, but they are still not as polished as they should be.

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On my system, the technical performance has been very good.

My setup:

GPU: RTX 4080
CPU: Intel Core i5-13600
RAM: 32 GB
Resolution: 3440x1440 ultrawide
Monitor: 39-inch ultrawide
Settings: close to max, with ray tracing and RR

With this setup, I get a stable 100 to 120 FPS, which is very impressive considering how good the game looks.

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Crimson Desert stands out to me because it respects the player more than most modern titles do. It does not constantly guide every step. It expects you to observe, experiment, and understand the world and its mechanics for yourself.

That is what real gaming feels like to me.

Yes, the controls are not perfect, and especially early on they can be frustrating. But the beautiful open world, the strong atmosphere, the incredible visuals, the solid performance, and most of all the old-school approach to gameplay and mechanics more than make up for it in my opinion.

A lot of the criticism I have seen online — especially about puzzles or not always knowing immediately what to do — feels less like a flaw of the game and more like a sign of how used many players have become to games doing all the thinking for them.

For me, Crimson Desert is strong precisely because it does not do that.

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+ Beautiful open world
+ One of the best-looking games I have played
+ Strong atmosphere and immersion
+ Excellent old-school gameplay philosophy
+ Lets the player think and experiment
+ Very good performance on high-end hardware
- Controls are still awkward and too complicated at times

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Recommended, especially for players who miss games that do not hold their hand all the time

Looks pretty nice so far, very early but a lot of potential in this one. Zomboid in 3D.

BATTLEFIELD IS BACK BABY !!! After many years and bad BF games like 2042 i thought they will never come back, but they did. Finally the good old BF we all wanted, and it feels and runs better then ever before.

Good Game it's fun but since the newest update it crashes all the time....

Für 14 Euro im Sale gekauft und wird refunded, das game ist nicht mal das Wert.

What should be fun in a Zombie Game ? KILLING Zombies !
Yeah and that's where this game fails totally.
The Combat and Gun Play is just not fun, it's very slow and clunky and killing zombies is not satisfying at all compared to Dying Light or Dead Island etc.
The Zombies are not nice designed or animated at all, well just like everything else in the Game.
Even for a free to play game i would not play it.
The Old Left 4 Dead or the first Dead Island are much much better games.
It has a nice concept, but simply lacks in every aspect you can think of.

Bin absoluter Zombie Survival Game Fan und PZ ist bei weitem wirklich das beste.
Optisch sicherlich erst ma abschreckend, aufn ersten Blick hab ich dieses Spiel auch nicht spielen wollen weil ich lieber Left4Dead B4B oder Dead Rising, Dying Light oder Scum usw gespielt hab.

PZ bietet aber soooo viel was kein anderes Game bieten kann, man kann sich hier so sehr in die Spielwelt vertiefen und die Apokalypse angehen wie man selber Bock hat, man hat praktisch unendliche Möglichkeiten was man alles machen kann.

Das Game lebt von Mods, davon gibt es tausende die auch real life items ins Spiel bringen, sei es Essen Autos Musik Waffen Kleidung usw, alles aufzählen ist gar nicht möglich.
Ohne Mods aber wäre dieses Spiel gar nichts, was ja nicht schlimm ist.

Ärgern tuts nur immer wieder weil Modhersteller irgendwas ändern oder Fehler machen und dann savegames nicht laden und man selber raus finden muss wo der Fehler ist, also alles mit vorsicht zu genießen. Ihr müsst wirklich jedes mal euren Save sichern falls was schief läuft und ihr neue Mods installiert und es kann auch von einen Tag aufn nächsten ein Fehler auftreten weil ne Mod geändert wurde und derjenige einen Fehler gemacht hat.
Also da hab ich mich schon sehr oft geärgert und musste Stundenlang nach Fehlersuche gehen um meinen Save wo ich tagelang unterwegs war sichern zu können.

Abseits davon machte mir bisher kein anderes Survival Game so viel Laune wie das hier.
Klar funktioniert immer noch nicht alles wie es soll und ein paar Dinge fehlen mir immer noch aber es macht dennoch im Moment unendlich Spaß und es wird langsam immer besser :)

Deutlich ein FETTER DAUMEN RUNTER aktuell.
Die Entwickler fahren das Game wohl wieder gegen die Wand.
Es gibt haufenweise exploits die nicht gefixt wurden, script user und cheater, duplizierte Waffen sind
weiterhin im Auktionshaus verfügbar und werden nicht entfernt.

Der einzige exploit der schnell gefixt worden ist war der mit den Cordy Waffen, ist ja auch klar da verliert Amazon ja Geld...
Glaube wenn das hier so weiter geht ist das Spiel dann endgültig am Ende.

Ich hatte ja schon 3 Monate das Spiel nicht angerührt und jetzt eben wieder wegen Talandre, aber all diese Exploits und das nichts dagegen gemacht wird, da überlegt man sich noch wie lange man das noch zockt.

Das Spiel verursacht mir leider starken Schwindel, hatte sonst nie Motion Sickness Probleme, aber dieses Game ist leider wirklich anstrengend zu spielen. Klar soll es realistisch sein, Grafik und Sound das beste was man gesehen hat.
Aber Gameplay ist leider vieeel zu krass, vielleicht weniger dieses Schwammige feeling und etwas mehr genauigkeit im Movement dann wärs wirklich geil.
So fühl ich mich leider wie vor 15 Jahren als ich sturzbesoffen versucht hab den Weg nach Hause zu finden.

THE SCAM BEFORE.... Wer dieses Game noch verteidigt, zockt und gut findet dem könnte man auch in den Mund kacken und derjenige würde meinen es schmeckt...
Größter Betrug der Spielgeschichte