Players Frustrated with Crimson Desert’s Shallow Storyline? Pearl Abyss CEO Addresses Online Criticism of the Game

Crimson Desert opened with mixed reviews from both players and critics when the game launched last week. The game has experienced a lot of issues and criticism, such as the use of generative AI in some of the art assets in the game, and just generally being too large a game that critics feel will overwhelm players.

Another issue that players and critics have with Crimson Desert is the lackluster story, which is basically a string of side quests stitched together that’ll take you from one area to the next. And it seems Peal Abyss CEO Heo Jinyoung agrees. Here’s what he had to say about the feedback from players, and what he had to say during the company’s most recent shareholders meeting.

Players Say Crimson Desert Story is Lackluster

Even though Crimson Desert is a massive game and is nearing the 5 million sales mark, players have expressed disappointment with the main storyline, calling it lacking and feeling as if it was an afterthought when the game was being developed. Essentially, as you progress within the game’s main storyline, you’ll do a bunch of side quests that’ll take you to the next area. Rinse and repeat. Because of this type of story progression, players are left feeling dissatisfied with the game.

Many players have said that the storyline of the game feels shallow and extremely generic. Many players have expressed their disappointment with the game in a subreddit, claiming that the devs focused way too much on the gameplay, map exploration, and combat, even though the game was marketed as an interactive and engaging story.

Pearl Abyss CEO Agrees

During the company’s latest shareholders’ meeting, Pearl Abyss CEO addressed players’ concerns with the game’s story, while also sharing the dev team’s plans for Crimson Desert, including working on patches and updates to further improve players’ experience, supporting mods for the game, building a tight community by utilizing streamer and influencers popularity, and figure out how the team will build and deliver a better main story to appease players as well. Here’s the full statement CEO Heo made during the shareholders’ meeting yesterday:

“Since its release, Crimson Desert continues to perform robustly, with first-place Steam sales, 240,000 concurrent users, and 3 million copies sold in 4 days. We will further upgrade the game through continuous patches, including improvements to operation methods based on user feedback”.

“The game’s storyline is lacking. I agree to some extent with the regrets players feel about the story. I think it would have been nice if we could have done well (in the story as well). The production team tried to make up for the lack of time left, but in the end, we focused on strengthening the gameplay that we were good at”.

“It’s good that it leads to expansion pack sales, but I think there are games that make money by selling more in the main story as content expands. I want to make a strategic decision to ensure that the main story of Crimson Desert sells well”.

“The mod community is active, and since our game has a sandbox structure, I think it would be a strength if we supported it. On the other hand, to support mods, a large part of the engine must be opened. Because of this, the development team also sees it positively, but has no specific plans”.

“I understand that player convenience is a top priority. Regarding the barrier to new player entry, various streamers and influencers will be active and fill the community tightly”.

“We tried implementing multiplayer inside the actual development, but in the current device environment, there are definitely some challenges”.