Crimson Desert Sells 4 Million Copies in 2 Weeks as Pearl Abyss’ Open World Action Adventure Continues Its Hot Streak

Crimson Desert has now hit the 4 million copies sold mark, two weeks after launch.

Pearl Abyss’ open world action adventure launched on March 19 and sold 2 million copies in a day. It then hit 3 million sales in five days, and now, just over a week later, it’s added another million to its sales total.

“Thank you to all the Greymanes who have been a part of this journey with us and for all of your incredible love and support,” a statement published to the Crimson Desert X / Twitter account read.

Player sentiment on Crimson Desert has improved significantly since launch, when it was met with a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam. Since then, a number of major patches have drastically improved the experience, adding everything from a storage box to more summonable mounts. Pearl Abyss’ quickfire updates have helped to improve Crimson Desert’s Steam user review rating, which is now on ‘very positive.’

Peak Steam player concurrents have not just held steady, but increased, with 276,261 hit on Sunday. Steam doesn’t paint the entire picture of a multiplatform game’s success; the actual peak concurrent will be higher, but neither Sony nor Microsoft make their player numbers public.

What’s clear is that Crimson Desert is a hit. According to the Korean business press, Pearl Abyss reportedly spent seven years making Crimson Desert, with development costs coming in at 200 billion won (approx. $133 million). Last week, Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young said Crimson Desert was on its way to 5 million sales, so it looks like the game has legs.

The natural next question is whether Pearl Abyss will expand the game with DLC, or even an expansion. Pearl Abyss CEO Heo Jin-young last week said there were no solid plans for any DLC, and cast doubt on the possibility of official mod support, but a Nintendo Switch 2 version is apparently being explored.

If you’re jumping into Crimson Desert’s huge open world, we recommend you take a look at our guide to Things to Do First in Crimson Desert, plus Things Crimson Desert Doesn’t Tell You (we’ve got 28 and counting!). We’ve also got a guide to the Best Early Weapons we recommend picking up, the Best Skills to Get First (including a handy explainer of the skills system), and 34 Essential Tips and Tricks to help you succeed in Pywel.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.