Never underestimate the worth of a patch, especially if it’s as sizable as the latest for Pearl Abyss’s Crimson Desert. Such is the impact that the open-world action-adventure achieved a new concurrent player record on Steam, peaking at 276,261 yesterday.
It’s a not-insignificant jump over its debut, which saw 239,045 concurrent players on the platform, but even more so since it was over ten days after launch. Player counts would usually remain static or stop dropping, especially considering the number of issues that Crimson Desert launched with (earning it a “Mixed” rating to start).
However, recent updates have made a big difference. Last week’s patch added new storage chests and additional Abyss Nexus points while taking the first steps to address the game’s control issues. The latest has gone even further, adding five permanent mounts to the game, several quality-of-life features like “Make Now” for cooking, sprinting improvements, and more. It also removed the AI-generated assets that were “unintentionally included.” Even the rating has improved, reaching “Very Positive” after 81 percent of the current 65,185 reviews gave it the thumbs-up.
Of course, this is far from the end of support. With Crimson Desert nearing five million sales, Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young revealed that the team would continue improving the title, to the point where it’s not quite ready to commit to DLC.
“It is difficult to give a definitive answer regarding the direction of DLC. However, our concept of DLC is to create an environment where players can enjoy the game for a longer time. It seems likely that we will choose to provide what players want as quickly as possible. While also considering revenue expansion, management and the development team will work closely together to achieve both user satisfaction and shareholder performance. Expanding sales of the base game remains our top priority,” he told shareholders in a recent Q&A.
Of course, it could even expand to other platforms like Nintendo Switch 2. Nothing is confirmed, but Pearl Abyss has begun R&D into the same.
