Crimson Desert Makes a Strong Impression on Steam's Wishlist Rankings

Despite not officially releasing until March 19th, Crimson Desert has quickly become the envy of many other games with its pre-order numbers, just on Steam alone.

Crimson Desert has received an impressive number of pre-orders.

The journey to its March 19th launch date has been a long one for developer  Pearl Abyss . Known primarily for their online role-playing games, they spent over seven years on this new title. Initially, it was envisioned as a prequel to  Black Desert.  But over time, it evolved into a large-scale, standalone game. And judging by the game's current success, that change was clearly a wise decision. 

According to SteamDB data,  Crimson Desert currently tops the global charts for best-selling paid games on Steam. Overall, this open-world game ranks second, behind only.  

Initial sales figures are also very impressive for a brand that's almost entirely new. According to Alinea Analytics estimates , Crimson Desert has grossed over $20 million from pre-orders on Steam. Yesterday alone, the game recorded $2.6 million in 24 hours, as the marketing campaign reached its peak.

To put it into perspective, the game has pre-orders four times higher and nearly ten times higher than last year's Game of the Year. However, this wave of anticipation is not without controversy. Recently, the gaming community has expressed dissatisfaction upon learning that the PC version of Crimson Desert will use Denuvo DRM anti-copying technology. Many veteran PC gamers are concerned that this anti-piracy software could affect performance, especially on systems already struggling to run the game's advanced graphics.

Concerns about game performance still remain.

Some players on Subreddit and Steam forums even called for canceling pre-orders or switching to the console version. In response to these concerns, Pearl Abyss attempted to reassure the community by demonstrating the game's good optimization capabilities. The announced minimum system requirements were quite manageable, allowing systems using nearly decade-old GTX 1060 GPUs to still run the game. The developer also claimed that the game could run native 4K 60 FPS without upscaling technologies like DLSS, a rather bold claim for a modern AAA title.

The company also proactively showed how the game runs on various hardware. After the gaming community requested more console gameplay footage, Digital Foundry got an early look at the PS5 Pro version and was quite impressed. Recently, on March 17th, Pearl Abyss also released a gameplay video running on the PS5 to further reassure fans.

According to the developers, the world is incredibly vast, with a map said to be twice the size of  The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.  Players will experience a wide variety of activities, going far beyond sword fighting. The gameplay is a crazy mix of mechanics: fishing, riding dragons, and even controlling giant mechanical suits.

The game also draws heavily on the freedom of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, offering players a rich 'toolbox' of skills to tackle challenges in many creative ways. Gamers will soon get to see all of this for themselves when Crimson Desert officially launches on March 19th.