75%
Probable
Crimson Desert is on a "completely different level compared to your typical mass-produced Unreal Engine 5 games" (despite some labeling it as the definition of "gaming plucked off a gas station shelf") according to an alleged former Pearl Abyss developer who also revealed that the reason behind building the BlackSpace Engine (which the Switch 2 could handle at 30 FPS with DLSS and CPU optimizations) and using the many old-school techniques it does was to create a massive amount of content with a small team and add new features quickly such as highly requested features (rejecting what they called Silicon Valley ego), a story improvement, expanded backstories for side characters and even a pinball minigame (and will continue to as long as there is demand), as well as gorgeous visuals that get even better on PC with Complete RT and ReSTIR GI.
As reported on the game's subreddit, an alleged former member of the Pearl Abyss engine team left a comment on the game's official YouTube channel, detailing why the game took so long to develop. "The reason development took 7 years is that they basically overhauled the engine every single year to optimize performance and push more polygons. For example, while most engines optimize through culling (simply not rendering what's unseen), the BlackSpace engine actually deletes the vertices. They also try new methods to shift tasks typically handled by the CPU over to the GPU," the alleged former developer said.
In addition to the above, Pearl Abyss apparently has no scripted code in the final build, using "all sorts of 'old-school' techniques like integer-based data, bit-level data, and simplified data structures," which are no longer used in modern games. The team is also "obsessed" with performance, something that will put Crimson Desert on a "completely different level compared to your typical mass-produced Unreal Engine 5 games."
Although the alleged former Pearl Abyss developer praised the technical aspects of Crimson Desert, which allowed the small team to "churn out massive amounts of content with a small team," they tempered expectations on the game. "I wasn't on the content team and I left a while ago, so I can't say for sure if the gameplay loop itself will stay engaging for hundreds of hours (personally, I couldn't play Black Desert for very long)."
As it is impossible to verify the identity of this alleged former developer, we have to take everything they said with a massive grain of salt. However, looking at the footage shared so far, including the first base PlayStation 5 footage, these claims do not seem either ludicrous or exaggerated. Crimson Desert looks indeed packed to the brim with content, and each new look is more surprising than the next, like today's launch trailer, which confirmed the game will feature jetpacks, among many other things.
Pearl Abyss's Obsession With Performance May Have Paid Off
Much like the claims on Crimson Desert's content, the performance claims also sound spot on. In a new video shared today, the tech experts at Digital Foundry took an early look at Crimson Desert on PlayStation 5 Pro.
While the current build of the game has some image quality issues, as it still uses the first version of the PSSR upscaler rather than the new version already seen in action in Resident Evil Requiem, performance seems to be on point. The three display modes essentially correspond to three performance targets: 60 FPS for Performance Mode, 40 for Balanced and 30 for Quality. Performance Mode maintains a stable 60 FPS very often, outside scenarios involving multiple NPCs, likely due to CPU constraints.
While there are still some questions about the game, especially whether all its wildly different mechanics will be cohesively tied together, Crimson Desert is shaping up to be one of the most interesting video game releases of the generation, with one of the biggest maps in open-world games to date (which holds an interesting secret at its end as well. Thankfully, the wait to see if the game will indeed be a Game of the Year contender is almost over, as it launches next week on March 19 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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