How is Crimson Desert on PS5?

Crimson Desert has been one of the most anticipated games of 2026, and after yesterday’s review embargo lifting, the general consensus has been that it is a technical marvel on PC, forging a huge, impressive open-world with thousands of things to see and do. The storytelling, meanwhile, has hit home for some writers, while others, myself included, haven’t been quite so easily won over, and there’s been a mysterious lack of footage shown of the console versions of the game.

In the run-up to launch, the console versions of Crimson Desert have been absent. All review code handed out by Pearl Abyss was for the PC version, while Digital Foundry were granted exclusive access to the game on a PS5 Pro, so up until 10PM GMT last night, no one had seen how the game ran on PS5. Fortunately, we’ve now had the chance to go hands-on with it, and initial impressions are good, albeit with some caveats.

It was little surprise to find that Crimson Desert updated once again this morning, taking it to version 1.000.143. The team at Pearl Abyss are clearly working around the clock on the game as a whole, across both PC and console, and one of the first things that has been apparent is that they’re updating and improving some of the onboarding, as well as some of the early puzzles, which should help it make a much better first impression than it has done for reviewers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Crimson Desert become another Cyberpunk 2077, or No Man’s Sky, in terms of improvements and ongoing support over time.

Still, onto the PS5 version, and when you initially load into the opening area of the game, you can see that the frame rate here isn’t particularly fluid. The night setting, the ambient lighting, firelight, and the environmental details are clearly quite taxing, and that means there’s a hit to the frame rate.

Crimson Desert on console has three main visual settings. It loads in at Balanced, but there are also Performance and Graphics options to choose from, and as it stands, you may want to opt for Balanced for the most consistent and enjoyable experience, particularly when it comes to enjoying the open world.

While the Balanced setting feels jittery through both the opening, and the initial battle you find yourself embroiled in, it really does settle down once you’re out in the open world and daylight. It feels as though this is sitting in the 30fps region, and there’s a good balance between crisp textures, frame rate and detailed geometry and character models, making the most of the awe-inspiring draw distance that stretches off to the horizon. There’s the faint shimmer of anti-aliasing on the edges of rocks and some more distant geometry, but it’s not particularly distracting.

Performance, meanwhile, is much more fluid and certainly closer to 60fps, at the cost of resolution, and the overall visual effect. Everything is noticeably fuzzier, effects, especially water, are tuned down, and pop-in becomes much more noticeable as you’re exploring the world. There’s still some of that when using Balanced, but everything is a lot more grounded there, while Pearl Abyss’s in-house engine seems to pick and choose what is going to suddenly appear in the middle distance when striving for a higher frame rate.

Finally there’s Quality mode, and I can’t currently recommend that you play on PS5 with this setting alone. While the resolution is noticeably sharper, and everything is indeed very beautiful, it’s only enjoyable for the moments when you’re standing still. Otherwise, the shudder of the camera motion alone is enough to steer you well away from whatever visual frippery you might get in return.

However, alongside the three graphical settings, there are further options for HDR and V-Sync. Turning V-Sync off improves the responsiveness further, including in Quality mode, but you may run into screen tearing as a result, depending on your TV or monitor. I’m lucky enough to have a VRR-enabled TV to help handle it, and this will be the setting I stick with while exploring the PS5 version further. If you have the tech, turn off V-Sync.

Otherwise, my thoughts from my review-in-progress still stand. This is an incredible open world, with some ‘interesting’ controls, and some amusingly janky moments, but at least now, we can be sure that it does exist and function on PS5. We haven’t spent 80 hours in this version yet, though, and as there have been bugs in the early PC build, I wouldn’t be surprised to find some lurking here too. Still, if you’re stepping into the game today, I hope you find plenty to enjoy in Pearl Abyss impressive creation.

Tags: Crimson Desert