Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
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A somewhat respected Spanish YouTuber with 700k subs named “Revenant” shared his experience with the review copy of Crimson Desert in a now deleted podcast VOD. Here’s his impressions I managed to get before it was taken down, as well as some leaks from the reviewer Discord of Crimson Desert where Pearl Abyss helps reviewers which he shared:
- it is not a narrative focused game, not an RPG. It’s much better than Black Desert in narrative, but not close to say Witcher 3 or Kingdom Come. It’s mostly about epic moments and battles.
- Combat is INCREDIBLE. He’s never seen such combat on a large scale. Like a character action game (DMC, Ninja Gaiden) set in a massive open world Crimson Desert supposedly runs at around 40-45 FPS on base PS5 Quality Mode.
Big emphasis on QUALITY mode. There should also be a Performance Mode which runs at or closer to 60 FPS.
Seen this floating around and wanted to clear that up.
- Combat has lots of player expression and depth. Different moves depending on positioning/direction. For example grapple command from behind is a suplex, from the side it’s a throw. Attack animations dependent on where you hit.
- The player is not only able to use trees as slingshots, but can also use enemies as slingshots. Presumably with some of the giant creatures we’ve seen in trailers.
- Absolutely no handholding, quite complex mechanics. It’s not a soulslike, but like a souls game you have to get used to the rhythm of its combat. It’s a slow burn and very steep learning curve for the first 8 hours, but when it clicks you’ll love it.
- Crazy verticality even without the sky islands. The world design and mission structure is like RDR2, the mechanics are like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
- Massive game. 50 hours in and he’s still in the first area.
- Gushes about the music, says it’s “fucking awesome, fucking awesome, fucking awesome”. Compares it to the Witcher 3. Ambient music also incredible and beautiful, slow and ethereal.
- Incredible atmosphere. Epic sense of scale, like Shadow of the Colossus / BOTW. Fantastic music helps elevate it. Nighttime is actually dark, like Dragons Dogma.
- Says game is lacking QOL. Confusing inventory. Quest items stay in inventory after finishing said quests. Limited inventory and no storage methods in your camp, so no storage. Only a bank where you can exchange currencies. They’ve asked Pearl Abyss about it but haven’t received a response.
- When you clear a camp, bodies despawn from the enemies you’ve killed after you wipe the enemies out. Meaning you have to leave an enemy or two alive so you can loot, unless you want to lose it. Or just loot during battle.
- Other minor issues. Says it’s stuff that can be fixed though.
Overall he thinks the game will get an 80/85 on metacritic from journalists. Only because of the very steep initial learning curve and the lack of QOL. It depends on whether they can overcome the learning curve and look past the QOL, after which wouldn’t be surprised if it got 90+, even a 95. Calls it an unpolished diamond.
Thinks users will love it. He says it’s his “favorite open world game ever”, even above Elden Ring, RDR2, Witcher 3 BOTW, KCD2 which he’s played and loved.
Follow me on social media:
Instagram: instagram.com/dreamcastguy
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/dreamcastguy.bsky.social
Twitch: twitch.tv/thedreamcastguy
A somewhat respected Spanish YouTuber with 700k subs named “Revenant” shared his experience with the review copy of Crimson Desert in a now deleted podcast VOD. Here’s his impressions I managed to get before it was taken down, as well as some leaks from the reviewer Discord of Crimson Desert where Pearl Abyss helps reviewers which he shared:
- it is not a narrative focused game, not an RPG. It’s much better than Black Desert in narrative, but not close to say Witcher 3 or Kingdom Come. It’s mostly about epic moments and battles.
- Combat is INCREDIBLE. He’s never seen such combat on a large scale. Like a character action game (DMC, Ninja Gaiden) set in a massive open world Crimson Desert supposedly runs at around 40-45 FPS on base PS5 Quality Mode.
Big emphasis on QUALITY mode. There should also be a Performance Mode which runs at or closer to 60 FPS.
Seen this floating around and wanted to clear that up.
- Combat has lots of player expression and depth. Different moves depending on positioning/direction. For example grapple command from behind is a suplex, from the side it’s a throw. Attack animations dependent on where you hit.
- The player is not only able to use trees as slingshots, but can also use enemies as slingshots. Presumably with some of the giant creatures we’ve seen in trailers.
- Absolutely no handholding, quite complex mechanics. It’s not a soulslike, but like a souls game you have to get used to the rhythm of its combat. It’s a slow burn and very steep learning curve for the first 8 hours, but when it clicks you’ll love it.
- Crazy verticality even without the sky islands. The world design and mission structure is like RDR2, the mechanics are like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
- Massive game. 50 hours in and he’s still in the first area.
- Gushes about the music, says it’s “fucking awesome, fucking awesome, fucking awesome”. Compares it to the Witcher 3. Ambient music also incredible and beautiful, slow and ethereal.
- Incredible atmosphere. Epic sense of scale, like Shadow of the Colossus / BOTW. Fantastic music helps elevate it. Nighttime is actually dark, like Dragons Dogma.
- Says game is lacking QOL. Confusing inventory. Quest items stay in inventory after finishing said quests. Limited inventory and no storage methods in your camp, so no storage. Only a bank where you can exchange currencies. They’ve asked Pearl Abyss about it but haven’t received a response.
- When you clear a camp, bodies despawn from the enemies you’ve killed after you wipe the enemies out. Meaning you have to leave an enemy or two alive so you can loot, unless you want to lose it. Or just loot during battle.
- Other minor issues. Says it’s stuff that can be fixed though.
Overall he thinks the game will get an 80/85 on metacritic from journalists. Only because of the very steep initial learning curve and the lack of QOL. It depends on whether they can overcome the learning curve and look past the QOL, after which wouldn’t be surprised if it got 90+, even a 95. Calls it an unpolished diamond.
Thinks users will love it. He says it’s his “favorite open world game ever”, even above Elden Ring, RDR2, Witcher 3 BOTW, KCD2 which he’s played and loved.
