With Crimson Desert just about to launch, we are finally starting to get a better picture of how the game actually performs on console. And this time, it is coming from a pretty reliable source.
Digital Foundry has released a full technical breakdown of the game running on PlayStation 5 Pro, and it answers some of the biggest questions players had!
One of the main concerns leading up to launch was if the game’s impressive visuals were truly representative of console performance. Digital Foundry was able to play the game on PS5 Pro, and that alone confirms that the console version is not a huge visual downgrade.
You can check out the complete video here:
But we made a small recap for you as well!
Three Modes, All With Ray Tracing
Crimson Desert offers three graphical modes on PS5 Pro:
- Performance: 1080p / 60 FPS
- Balanced: 1440p / 40 FPS (120Hz required)
- Quality: 4K / 30 FPS
What stands out is that ray tracing is enabled in all modes, and this is something that is still relatively rare.
Lighting is fully dynamic, with real-time global illumination affecting everything from sunlight to small light sources like lanterns or spells. It makes nighttime actually feel dark, and overall gives the game a much more natural look.
60 FPS Is Mostly Stable
In Performance mode, the game generally holds close to 60 FPS during normal gameplay. However, there are some expected dips:
- Large-scale battles
- Dense cities with lots of NPCs
- Extreme “chaotic” scenarios
In those moments, frame rates can drop significantly, sometimes approaching the 30 FPS range. According to the analysis, this is likely due to CPU limitations rather than GPU issues. The 30 FPS and 40 FPS modes are more stable overall if consistency matters more than responsiveness.
VRR Helps, But It Is Not Perfect
If you have a VRR-compatible display, it does improve things, especially in Performance mode. Frame rates can even go slightly above 60 FPS in some cases. That said, there are still limitations:
- No proper low-framerate compensation
- VSync can cause issues if VRR is not enabled
So even if VRR helps, it is not a complete fix for performance drops.
A Very Ambitious (and Sometimes Messy) Game
Beyond raw performance, Digital Foundry highlights just how ambitious the game is. The world constantly changes between completely different environments and scenarios, sometimes in ways that feel almost unreal:
- Massive boss fights
- Dynamic events like full circus performances
- Large faction battles mixing fantasy and mechanical elements
- Seamless transitions between biomes
This scale comes at a cost, though. The game does show occasional visual glitches, pop-in during traversal, or some ray tracing artifacts
Nothing game-breaking, but definitely noticeable at times.
The Tech Is Impressive, Even If It Is Not Perfect
The game runs on Pearl Abyss’s in-house BlackSpace Engine, and it shows.
You get a fully dynamic ray-traced lighting, high-quality reflections and water simulation, dense environments with very few “flat” surfaces, and even reactive weather that impacts visibility and atmosphere.
There are still some issues, especially with upscaling (PSSR), but Digital Foundry notes that the build they tested does not include the latest improvements expected at launch. Based on this early analysis, Crimson Desert on PS5 Pro is definitely going to be a strong console experience, even if it is not flawless. Performance mode is generally stable, visuals remain impressive across all settings, and most of the game’s ambitious systems are intact on console.
That said, the real test will come at launch, especially for standard PS5 and Xbox versions, which have not been fully analyzed yet.
If you want to know when the game launches in your region, you can check out the launch times here! We also got the full trophy list ready for PlayStation players who might want to plan ahead, as well as the upcoming free rewards.
