Crimson Desert's Console Reality Check: When the Spell Looks a Bit Less Sparkly on Your PS5
AI Gaming News Author · kotaku ·
Crimson Desert's highly anticipated console footage has finally dropped, revealing a far more 'ordinary' experience on regular PS5s compared to its breathtaking PC trailers, raising questions about transparency and managing player expectations despite not being a disaster.
Right then, gather 'round, mates, because we've got a bit of a classic gaming tale unfolding, one that starts with dazzling magic and ends with... well, something a bit more, shall we say, *mundane*.
For months, the gaming world has been absolutely buzzing about Pearl Abyss's upcoming action-adventure, *Crimson Desert*. If you've been anywhere near a screen, you've probably seen that jaw-dropping PC footage – the kind that makes you accidentally spill your cuppa because you're too busy staring at the graphical wizardry. It looked utterly phenomenal, a true next-gen spectacle that promised to blow our collective minds. But here's the rub, eh? While PC owners were practically vibrating with anticipation, us console dwellers started to notice a rather curious omission: a distinct lack of actual gameplay footage running on, you know, an actual console.
Now, thanks to the eagle eyes over at Kotaku, particularly John Walker, and the recent reveal on Sony's Japanese Play Play Play outlet, we've finally had a proper peek at *Crimson Desert* doing its thing on a regular PS5. And the big takeaway? It's… fine. Just *fine*. Which, after all that mind-bending, reality-warping PC hype, feels a bit like casting a powerful fire spell and getting a damp squib instead.
For a while, there was talk of 'bullshots' – those highly doctored screenshots or videos that make a game look impossibly good. But Digital Foundry, bless their techy hearts, actually got their hands on developer footage running on high-end PC gear at 'Ultra' settings. And fair dinkum, it still looked astonishingly beautiful. Not quantum-processor-level tech required, mind you, but certainly a beefy rig. So the PC footage wasn't exactly a lie; it was just showing the game at its absolute peak, a glorious digital Everest that most of us on terra firma wouldn't experience.
The real kicker came just days before launch (March 19th, if you're keeping track of these things). Pearl Abyss finally, *finally* dropped the full specs for consoles. And that's when the genie was truly out of the bottle. Turns out, your trusty PS5 and Xbox Series X will be aiming for 1080p at 60 FPS in Performance mode, with raytracing set to 'low.' If you fancy a slightly sharper image, you can hit upscaled 4K in Quality mode, but then you're stuck at a rather sedate 30 FPS. And spare a thought for the Xbox Series S, which will be chugging along at 720p in Performance. Ouch.
Now, the PS5 Pro apparently fares better, managing native 4K at 30 FPS or upscaled 4K at 60 FPS in Performance. But let's be honest, that's a small slice of the console pie, and not what most folks were expecting after seeing those initial trailers.
The newly released footage of the game running on a regular PS5 (which, infuriatingly, Sony uploaded at a paltry 1080p, adding YouTube's dreaded artifacting to the mix – seriously, why?) confirms what many suspected. It looks like a perfectly competent, bog-standard PS5 game. It certainly doesn't possess the same otherworldly sheen that had us all salivating just a few months ago. It's like finding out your powerful magical artifact is just a really well-painted rock.
This isn't exactly new territory, is it, mate? We're well over five years into this console generation, and it's always around this point that PC hardware starts to pull ahead in noticeable ways. Console owners watch their 'next-gen' boxes age gracefully (or not so gracefully), while PC enthusiasts are constantly upgrading their 'Ship of Theseus' rigs. It's a natural progression of hardware, and perfectly reasonable in the grand scheme of things.
What's perhaps *less* reasonable, and where my gentle skepticism really kicks in, is the decision to keep the actual console visuals under wraps until so close to release. This isn't the first time we've seen this play out – remember the rather... *challenging* launch of a certain sprawling RPG six years ago? (You know the one.) Hiding the true console experience until the eleventh hour doesn't exactly build confidence, does it? It makes you wonder what they were so keen on *not* showing us.
However, and here's my cautiously optimistic side peeking through, this new footage doesn't suggest a full-blown disaster. It just suggests an *average-looking* game for console players. If the underlying gameplay is as engaging and fun as the previews have promised, then a slight visual downgrade might just be a bummer, rather than a deal-breaker. It's a disappointment, no doubt, especially given the sheer intensity of the hype around its graphical prowess. But a good game is a good game, regardless of whether it bends reality or just looks quite nice.
So, while *Crimson Desert* might not be the visual sorcery we were led to believe on our consoles, let's keep an open mind. Perhaps the real magic is in the gameplay loop, eh? Only time, and a proper play-through, will tell if it's got enough enchanted fun to make us forget the less-than-stellar spell effects.
Tags: CrimsonDesert, PS5, GamePerformance, HypeVsReality, PearlAbyss
Original article: kotaku