Crimson Desert Smashes Sales and Concurrent Player Count Even After All the Mixed Reviews its Seen Since Release

Crimson Desert has had a rocky start, from mixed reviews by both players and critics to players’ complaints about certain features of the game, prompting developer Pearl Abyss to release an update for the game. However, that hasn’t stopped the game from achieving new heights in sales and concurrent player count, especially if the past week is any indication. Here are some updated stats on Crimson Desert, and what this could mean for the game going forward.

Crimson Desert Sees Impressive Concurrent Player Count in the Past Week

Even after all the mixed reviews Crimson Desert has been seeing, it seems players are quite enjoying the expansive open-world RPG game. There’s definitely no shortage of things to do in the game. From completing the main story and side quests in different areas of the map to base building to resource collecting, you’ll definitely have your plate full playing this game. In the past 24 hours, Crimson Desert peaked at 236,253 concurrent players on Steam alone, according to the game’s SteamDB.

That’s only 40,000 from the game’s all-time peak, which came out to 276,261 concurrent players on Steam, which Crimson Desert hit just last week. This definitely shows that the game isn’t a lost cause, even after all the drama since its release. It also shows a ton of player interest, and it’s not surprising given all the quality of life updates Pearl Abyss added to the game, such as the addition of private storage boxes, bug fixes, and even design changes to monsters and art in the game.

It seems, for right now, Pearl Abyss doesn’t have much to worry about, considering that hundreds of thousands of players have expressed interest in playing the game, not even counting other platform players. We definitely shouldn’t count out Crimson Desert as a fan-favorite game this year.

Crimson Desert Sits at Number 2 on Steam Top Sellers for 8 Weeks

Crimson Desert also impresses by keeping the top 2 spot on Steam’s top sellers list, and has been sitting on that spot for 8 consecutive weeks. If the game sees a continuous interest from players, it could join games like Baldur’s Gate 3 and GTA 5, which are the best single-player games that have pulled in live service figures weeks, even months after their initial release. However, we would definitely have to keep an eye out to see if Crimson Desert can pull that off for the rest of the year.

Crimson Desert was released just over a couple of weeks ago and has had a pretty interesting launch so far. It opened with a bunch of mixed reviews from both players and critics, which was completely surprising given the hype many people had expressed during the game’s promotional period. Many people struggled with how massive the game was, from all the content to just the sheer size of the map, which is gigantic by the way.

Apart from that, players took notice of the use of generative AI in many art assets of the game, to a generic main storyline that felt like a side project, as well as certain quality of life issues that made the game a little unbearable to play. However, Pearl Abyss recently came out with an update that addressed many of these issues, which I also believe had a hand in why Crimson Desert still has high player retention, even through all the drama. I’m definitely excited to see how things will develop for Crimson Desert in the coming months and what else Pearl Abyss has in store for players.