Crimson Desert, scheduled for release tomorrow, faces an uncertain critical reception as various leaks and early impressions circulate online, ranging from high praise to specific criticisms of its game design elements and open world.
Nevertheless, the game is already demonstrating robust commercial success. For several consecutive days, Crimson Desert has maintained a leading position among paid titles in the Steam revenue charts, driven by significant digital pre-orders. Only Counter-Strike 2 currently holds a higher spot, but this situation could potentially change in the near future.
A significant factor contributing to the heightened interest in the game has been the coverage from Digital Foundry, which highly praised the graphics of the PC version. It’s important to note, however, that achieving the absolute best visual quality requires enabling ray reconstruction technology, a feature that places considerable demands on hardware. According to Digital Foundry, only owners of high-end GPUs such as the GeForce RTX 5090, RTX 5080, and RTX 5070 Ti will be able to comfortably utilize this feature. Other users, including those on the PS5 Pro, can expect a visually simpler presentation.
A Digital Foundry editor remarked:
The difference in graphics after enabling ray reconstruction is so immense that I couldn’t believe it.