This morning, during its Q2 fiscal year 2025 presentation, South Korean developer Pearl Abyss announced the delay of Crimson Desert. The upcoming action/adventure game was previously scheduled to launch in Q4 2025, but it has been pushed back one quarter, as the Pearl Abyss CEO revealed:
Currently, Crimson Desert has been in the process of voice-overs while also carrying out tasks such as console certification in preparation for its release. In the case of marketing, we plan to participate in Gamescom and PAX West this August to showcase our open-world build. And in September, we will join the Tokyo Game Show to strengthen our marketing efforts in the Japanese market.
The launch of Crimson Desert, our first large-scale AAA console game, has been unavoidably delayed by one quarter, from the previously announced schedule. This is due to longer than expected timelines arising from schedule coordination and collaborations with multiple partners for offline distribution, voice-overs, console certification, and other launch preparations. We sincerely apologize for not being able to meet the originally promised fourth quarter launch schedule. Please kindly understand that this is a strategic decision aimed at insuring success on a meaningful scale.
The release date has been internally confirmed for Q1 2026. However, given the change in launch timing, we will announce the date at a more appropriate time based on business considerations, rather than making an announcement at Gamescom next week.
Unfortunate news for anyone looking to play Crimson Desert this year, to be sure, but no doubt the final version will benefit from a little bit more polish. Besides, the game was originally meant to be launched as far back as Winter 2021, but then the developers went back to the drawing board and reworked it considerably from the original MMO-like plan into a single player open world game. At this point, a few more months won't make that much of a change.
As mentioned in the executive's quote, Crimson Desert will also be playable in a new build at Gamescom, PAX West, and Tokyo Game Show. We will be there at Gamescom to check out this new version and report back, so stay tuned. As a reminder, the game will be released on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series S|X.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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