Crimson Desert has hit 2 million copies sold just a day after launch, although it has suffered a mixed response from critics and players.
Pearl Abyss’ hotly anticipated open world action game launched across PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S yesterday, March 19, and today, the Korean company announced that 2 million copies had been sold worldwide.
In its announcement, Pearl Abyss said it was aware of feedback from players, and would “work to make improvements quickly.”
“We are incredibly humbled to share that Crimson Desert has sold through 2 million copies worldwide,” reads Pearl Abyss’ statement. “Thank you so much to our fans, community, and everyone who has joined us in Pywel. We will listen closely to the wide range of feedback shared by the community and work to make improvements quickly, doing our utmost to make the journey ahead even more enjoyable for our players.”
As IGN has reported, Crimson Desert launched big on Steam with nearly 250,000 concurrent players, but it currently has a “mixed” user review rating. Much of the criticism from players revolves around the controls, which some have called clunky and unnecessarily complicated. There are some performance complaints too. For example, PS5 owners have come together to work out the cause of blurry visuals — an issue that’s also on the PC version.
Pearl Abyss will be keen to address the main complaints with Crimson Desert sooner rather than later in a bid to improve its Steam review rating. Yesterday, IGN reported on how Pearl Abyss saw its stock price plunge nearly 30% in what was seen as a reaction to review scores from critics. Today, the company stock fell a further 9.78%. According to the Korean business press, Pearl Abyss reportedly spent seven years developing Crimson Desert, with development costs coming in at 200 billion won (approx. $133 million). It will be interesting to see if this sales announcement boosts the share price.
We’ve got plenty more on Crimson Desert, including patch notes for its day one update, IGN’s Crimson Desert Review So Far, and our launch interview with Will Powers. We’ve also got a Crimson Desert PC performance review.
And if you’re jumping into Crimson Desert’s huge open world, we recommend you take a look at our guide to Things to Do First in Crimson Desert, plus Things Crimson Desert Doesn’t Tell You (we’ve got 28 and counting!). We’ve also got a guide to the Best Early Weapons we recommend picking up, the Best Skills to Get First (including a handy explainer of the skills system), and 34 Essential Tips and Tricks to help you succeed in Pywel.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
