There's a phrase that keeps coming up in discussions about Crimson Desert, and one I continually come back to every time I write about it: "It looks too good to be true." PS5 and Xbox players in particular have been skeptical, since you don't have to look much further than Cyberpunk 2077 for a game that looked great on PC at launch but offered a dismal experience on console. Today, the monkey's paw curled, as the first console footage looks very impressive, but Steam is suddenly warning PC gamers of the approach of their greatest nemesis: Denuvo DRM.
The tech experts at Digital Foundry just posted a deep dive video exploring the PS5 Pro version of Crimson Desert, and the first impressions are quite positive. As developer Pearl Abyss detailed a few days ago, the PS5 Pro offers three visual options: Performance (upscaled 1080p at 60fps), Balanced (upscaled 1440p at 40fps), and Quality (native 4K at 30fps).
According to John Linneman's analysis at DF, the Balanced and Quality modes meet their frame rate targets more or less flawlessly. The 60fps mode maintains its target frame rate "by and large," though big battles with lots of NPCs can bring the frame rate down as low as the 30-40fps range in the high-performance mode.
This analysis, again, only applies to PS5 Pro, but it bodes well for the lower-tier consoles, each of which offers similar performance modes, albeit with lesser ray tracing features. If PS5 Pro can maintain 30fps at 4K with "ultra" ray tracing, it feels pretty likely that the base PS5 and Xbox Series X can also keep that stable frame rate at 1440p with a downgrade to RT. But, of course, we'll have to wait for launch to get a final verdict on that front.
While it's good news for console players, their despair has now been placed upon PC fans. Earlier today, Crimson Desert's Steam page was updated to note that it "incorporates 3rd-party DRM: Denuvo Anti-tamper." Yep, the controversial anti-piracy tool will be part of Crimson Desert at launch, and you can imagine the tone of the comments in places like the PC gaming subreddit.
Denuvo doesn't always impact a game's performance, but even the DRM company's official reps have been willing to admit there are cases where it absolutely has. Given the other uncertainties around Crimson Desert, including how well a studio known primarily for an MMO can deliver a single-player open-world RPG, it's easy to understand why PC gamers' skepticism is growing.
Still, Linneman calls this "without a doubt, one of the most impressive open-world experiences I've ever had." Earlier this month, after 6 hours of hands-on time with Crimson Desert, our own Andy wrote that it's a bit of an "overstuffed toybox, offering pure entertainment if not always cohesion."
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