Crimson Desert: Pearl Abyss blames review build for middling scores
Pearl Abyss's European CEO says critics had an older version and too little time. The game has sold six million copies.
Graphic: TERRA WORLD NEWS (own graphic based on the sources listed)
Pearl Abyss believes the review process is partly to blame for Crimson Desert's mixed scores. "Critics had to play the build that is not the exact same version as the launch game," Lybee Park, European CEO of the South Korean studio, told industry outlet The Game Business. She added that reviewers had limited time and mostly followed the main story.
Yet the game's appeal is spread across its entire world, Park said: "I am not sure critics had the fair chance to explore those during the review period." The open-world game, released in March, holds a Metacritic score of 77, while players rate it considerably higher.
Commercially, Crimson Desert is a success: according to The Game Business, it has sold six million copies, about half of them on PlayStation and Xbox. Since launch, Pearl Abyss has added new difficulty levels and visual improvements, among other things. A Nintendo Switch 2 version is planned for the first half of 2027.