Crimson Desert has hit yet another milestone : 6 million sales since its March 19 release this year. The game’s review scores among critics were a bit ho-hum, but players ate it up, especially with the non-stop, large-scale updates that arrive every week or so, and have drastically transformed the game in just a few months. That 6 million sales mark means that Crimson Desert is the second-best-selling game in the US in 2026, so far.

Now, in a Dextero interview at Summer Game Fest, Pearl Abyss Director of PR and Marketing, Will Powers, credited an interesting, controversial metric as helping Crimson Desert r each these heights:

“If I want to promote the game, a great way to do that is to have a sustained player base and constantly be high up on the Steam charts.”

“Having continued support and continued content both rewards your community and the people that have invested time in it, as well as doing free marketing without having to spend it elsewhere. So you’re spending it on adding more content to the game instead of spending it on advertising.”

If you follow industry discourse, this is rather funny given that Steam Charts have become a point of non-stop discussion, and low ones in particular are often weaponized against struggling games. But the opposite is also true, leading to positive press, and in Crimson Desert’s case, the numbers have been a point of pride.

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Crimson Desert , despite being a brand new IP that did not even review especially well (and briefly caused Pearl Abyss stock to tank), hit 276,261 concurrent players on Steam near launch, and maintained over 100,000 players until early May, stellar for a single player game, which often feature sharp drop-offs after release. Crimson Desert , however, is extremely long, and players could spend 100 hours in the first zone alone, and many have. I’m currently at hour 330, and have been logging in to every new update so far.

Right now, Crimson Desert is still doing almost 50,000 players a weekend, now almost three months after launch. There are very few single-player games that are able to have this kind of longevity. However good Crimson Desert is doing, however, we are still miles away from all-time greats like Elden Ring , still getting 50,000 players a weekend as well, but over four years from release. A similar example is Baldur’s Gate 3 , full of its infinite choices and relationships and strategies, doing nearly 70,000 players since its release in 2023. I love Crimson Desert, but it’s not going to do that.

It will, however, get more updates and eventual DLC. Pearl Abyss is building out the game to be far more than it was at release, and once that includes more story content, we will probably see a big surge once more.

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