Pearl Abyss announces Crimson Desert has sold more than 2 million copies in less than 24 hours, promises to 'work to make improvements quickly'

Crimson Desert Twitch Drops: A close-up of Kliff bracing while holding his sword over his shield, ready to thrust. — (Image credit: Pearl Abyss)

Crimson Desert's launch hasn't been met with universal acclaim, as frustrations with the hypermanic open world's bizarre control scheme and design oversights like its bafflingly restrictive inventory system have earned an early "Mixed" rating on Steam.

Those complaints, however, don't seem to have slowed its launch day sales. Just over 16 hours after its Steam unlock time, Pearl Abyss has announced that Crimson Desert has already sold more than 2 million copies.

We are incredibly humbled to share that #CrimsonDesert has sold through 2 million copies worldwide. Thank you so much to our fans, community, and everyone who has joined us in Pywel. We will listen closely to the wide range of feedback shared by the community and work to make… pic.twitter.com/AivMESKWpuMarch 20, 2026

"We are incredibly humbled to share that Crimson Desert has sold through 2 million copies worldwide," Pearl Abyss announced on its official X account. "Thank you so much to our fans, community, and everyone who has joined us in Pywel."

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After offering its gratitude, Pearl Abyss also addressed the elephant in the launch day celebration room, committing to fixing the issues that are making Pywel kind of a pain for day one players.

"We will listen closely to the wide range of feedback shared by the community and work to make improvements quickly, doing our utmost to make the journey ahead even more enjoyable for our players," Pearl Abyss said.

Pearl Abyss already deployed a small day one patch with a collection of minor tweaks and performance improvements, but the most-wanted improvements like control scheme redesigns and mapping features will likely take a bit longer to materialize—assuming they do materialize, of course.

If you're waiting to be able to play with an Intel Arc GPU, however, I wouldn't hold your breath. Pearl Abyss has confirmed that Crimson Desert doesn't support Arc cards, and is urging users who "purchased the game expecting Intel Arc support" to "please refer to the refund policy of the platform where the game was purchased for available options."

Lincoln has been writing about games for 12 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.

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