Crimson Desert hits a new Steam peak of over 276,000 players on its second weekend as Pearl Abyss removes AI art and continues to improve divisive controls

Crimson Desert's second weekend was even bigger than its first as the game reached a new peak Steam player count record.

We already knew Crimson Desert was one of the biggest new games of 2026 when it was announced the game had sold three million copies in five days post-launch, and even after launching with "Mixed" Steam reviews, it kept going. This weekend saw the developers replace AI generated assets which it previously apologized for accidentally letting slip into the retail version, and on top of that, the game got even bigger on PC.

Per SteamDB, Crimson Desert hit a new all-time peak on Sunday, March 29. The game hit a high of 276,261 concurrent players, beating out the opening weekend's peak of 248,530. The Sunday of the opening weekend for a game is typically when we see its all-time peak occur in most cases, and yet, Crimson Desert managed to jump past it. It could be a case of people waiting until the AI slop was removed from the game, or just excellent word of mouth that has since caused the Steam reviews to come back around into "Very Positive."

PR and marketing director of Pearl Abyss, Will Powers, comments on the new peak – which at the time of his tweet was still about 20k less than where it would eventually end up. He says, "We did it! Thank you guys. Hope you're enjoying all the new updates in the patch."

There was a further hotfix released today which is also targeting problems players have with the game, with a movement glitch being taken away, which has resulted in more praise towards Pearl Abyss for getting to player issues fast.

If you're curious about the game yourself now, check out our Crimson Desert review for our honest thoughts on it.