Overwhelming, chaotic, madcap. That's how our very own Harvey Randall describes Crimson Desert after spending 6 hours in it, and if that sounds great to you, then I have even better news. Developer Pearl Abyss has just released a full set of fleshed-out PC system requirements, and it all looks great.
It's not the first time we've heard about the PC specs for Crimson Desert because, oddly enough, Corsair of all companies got the scoop. However, its post on the matter was a bit light on details, but now we've got the full shebang.
Starting with the entry/minimum requirements, you'll need an AMD Ryzen 5 2600X or Intel Core i5 8500 CPU, an AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT or Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card, 16 GB of system memory, and a whopping 150 GB of SSD storage. That's using the minimum graphics preset, at 1080p upscaled from 900p, giving you 30 fps.
Article continues belowIf you drop the upscaling and switch to the Low graphics preset, you get the same performance, but you'll need a GeForce GTX 1660 or Radeon RX 6500 XT card. The CPU, DRAM, and SSD requirements remain the same.
That's actually all pretty darn good, because those six core processors are pretty old now, and none of the listed GPUs is what you'd call powerful by today's standards. Yes, the storage demands are pretty steep, especially in light of just how expensive gaming SSDs are now, but given how expansive and pretty the game looks, 150 GB doesn't feel excessively huge (though time will tell once we actually get to play the game fully).
Skipping all the way to the top of things, using the game's Ultra quality preset, if you want to hit 60 fps at 4K (without upscaling, it would seem), then you won't need a super powerful CPU, just something relatively new: a Core i5 13600K or a Ryzen 7 7700X, or equivalent. That's still quite high spec compared to a lot of games, but at least you won't need an absolute top-end graphics card.
Pearl Abyss says that a GeForce RTX 5070 Ti or Radeon RX 9070 XT should be good enough for 4K 60 fps, and sure, they are very expensive graphics cards, and they're the latest models from AMD and Nvidia. But look: no mention of upscaling or frame generation, no RTX 5090 required to get a reasonable frame rate.
I'd expect 4K maxed out to require something potent in an open-world game with pretty graphics, and Crimson Desert doesn't fail to disappoint here, but it's not excessively demanding. On paper, at least.
And the developer gets some brownie points from me for creating a console-like requirements table for handheld gaming PCs. Well, two very specific handheld PCs: the Asus ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X. Rather than use the same graphics presets for desktop/laptops PC, Pearl Abyss appears to be taking the same approach as it does for the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
By that, I mean you'll select between Performance, Balanced, and Quality modes to get the visuals-performance balance you want. No word on how other handhelds will do this, but hopefully, it's just as simple to switch things around on a Steam Deck.
What is puzzling is just why the developer specifically namechecked the ROG Xbox Ally pair and why they're being treated as if they're consoles, because they're absolutely not: The Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X are handheld PCs running Windows, just like most other devices of that nature.
Asus has partnered with AMD to bundle Crimson Desert with certain hardware, but that's it as far as any obvious collaborations (read: give me money, I mentioned your hardware) go. Tis all a bit odd.
Anyway, assuming that none of these system requirements is 'aspirational' as many often are, it looks like the number of PCs that will be able to run Crimson Desert, and run it well, should be pretty big. It's almost as if the developers have years of experience in handling one game on lots of different rigs. Oh, wait, they do: Black Desert Online.
1. Best gaming laptop: Razer Blade 16
2. Best gaming PC: HP Omen 35L
3. Best handheld gaming PC: Lenovo Legion Go S SteamOS ed.
4. Best mini PC: Minisforum AtomMan G7 PT
5. Best VR headset: Meta Quest 3
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