Statistik visar bristande spelarintresse för Crimson Desert huvudberättelse

Crimson Desert became one of the biggest titles released in 2026. Despite many positive aspects of the new Pearl Abyss game, its storyline turned out to be rather mediocre and failed to attract gamers' attention - which is also confirmed by Crimson Desert achievements page on Steam.

If you have completed all the story quests in Crimson Desert, you are entitled to the Expert Storyteller achievement. Players have noted that this achievement has been earned by only 6.9% of players, which indicates that only a few have finished the game. This is quite surprising, considering that the game currently has over 42,000 active users, according to SteamDB, and it has been almost 2 months since its release. Nevertheless, one should not forget that Crimson Desert is quite a large-scale game, and exploring one of its regions can take more than 40 hours of real time, not to mention that the game has a lot of additional quests besides exploring the world.

The fact that the plot of Crimson Desert turned out differently than expected was previously mentioned by the actors who provided the voice and motion capture for the main character, Kliff – Alex Newman and Trevor McEwan, respectively. Moreover, it was also stated by the CEO of Pearl Abyss, Heo Jin-young, who admitted its issues and stated that the studio focused on gameplay rather than story development. It’s also been reported that the studio is considering making a DLC for Crimson Desert, which could develop the story of the original game and expand its lore.

It is also worth mentioning that the story of Crimson Desert was rewritten during development, which was previously confirmed by one of the developers who preferred to remain anonymous. According to the original plan, the story was about a young king who had his throne usurped, and the middle-aged prime minister, who was looking after a young king and a young princess, came and asked to make them royalty. In the end, the middle-aged prime minister was supposed to betray them and try to become the king himself.

Last week, Pearl Abyss released a new update to Crimson Desert— Patch Notes Version 1.07.00 —where more bosses were added to be challenged in the rematches, new mounts, and more.

Crimson Desert is available now on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Mac, and Xbox ROG Ally.