Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss has issued a message to players addressing complaints around the game’s controls, which have been widely criticized.
In an online statement, Pearl Abyss said it was aware of the “discomfort” players are having with the controls, and confirmed a patch will address it. The developer did not say when this patch will be released, or detailed what it will actually do (most players are desperate for controller mapping and key binding support). Meanwhile, Pearl Abyss apologized to keyboard and mouse players for their experience playing the game (Crimson Desert recommends players use a controller instead of KB&M when you start, mindful, perhaps, of how fiddly its controls are).
As IGN has reported, Crimson Desert launched big on Steam with nearly 250,000 concurrent players, but it currently has a “mixed” user review rating on Valve’s platform. Much of the criticism from players revolves around the controls, which some have called clunky and unnecessarily complicated. There are some performance complaints too. For example, PS5 owners have come together to work out the cause of blurry visuals — an issue that’s also on the PC version.
Despite these shortcomings, Crimson Desert sold an impressive 2 million copies in just a day — and it remains among the most-played games on Steam (neither Sony nor Microsoft make player numbers public).
There is still no comment from Pearl Abyss on accusations that Crimson Desert contains AI-generated art. If Crimson Desert does contain generative AI art, it would put Pearl Abyss in violation of Steam’s AI Content policy, which requires generative AI use to be disclosed on the game’s store page. Currently, there is no such disclaimer.
Here’s Pearl Abyss’ statement in full:
