Crimson Desert launches next week on March 19. Despite hype levels reaching critical mass for the RPG, we hadn’t yet seen console gameplay of it. That changes today, thanks to a new video from Digital Foundry showing off the PS5 Pro port of Crimson Desert.
If you’ve been on the internet in the last few weeks, you’ve likely seen that a lot of people are very excited for the gorgeous-looking open-world action RPG Crimson Desert. The game looks massive, boasts an impressive host of gameplay features, and sports impressive visuals. It could end up being one of 2026’s biggest games. Oddly, up until this point, we hadn’t seen Crimson Desert running on a console, something that had made fans nervous. People got even more nervous when it was revealed that reviews wouldn’t go live until 24 hours before launch and reviewers would only have access to the PC port. So naturally, many hyped-up Crimson Desert fans were happy to finally get some console gameplay footage on Thursday. But, there’s an asterisk: This footage is of the game running on a PS5 Pro and not a base PS5.
On March 12, Digital Foundry posted a lengthy video and article about Crimson Desert’s PS5 Pro performance. And it’s mostly good news.
Is Crimson Desert 60FPS on PS5 Pro?
The game looks sharp in all three visual modes (optimal, balanced, and quality, with optimal being the performance-focused option), though some PSSR upscaling artifacts can ruin parts of the image. DF is hopeful that Crimson Desert‘s final version will look better, thanks to it using the upgraded version of PSSR seen in Resident Evil Requiem.
As for framerate performance, Digital Foundry reports that all three modes do a solid job sticking to their target framerates, even the 60FPS “optimal” mode. However, framerates can drop significantly during big battles, though DF’s John Linneman made it clear that these moments are “not the norm at all.” DF recommends PS5 Pro players run the game in 60FPS or 40FPS (balanced) modes, as the 30FPS quality mode felt less responsive.
“We’ve not seen much of Crimson Desert on consoles,” Digital Foundry boss Richard Leadbetter told IGN. “But when Pearl Abyss offered us the chance to take a look at the PS5 Pro version with no limitations on what we could cover, we jumped at the chance. My main concern was not so much about graphics but on demands on the CPU. Yes, it can be demanding, but overall performance across the three modes is impressive. But more impressive is really what this game is about—the scale and the scope and the systems-driven open world. The high-end PC experience scales well to PS5 Pro, and we’re looking forward to seeing the other console versions.”
So at the very least, Crimson Desert doesn’t sound like it will be an unoptimized mess that barely runs on consoles. We still need to see how it performs on base PS5 and Xbox consoles, but for now, fans can breathe a little sigh of relief as I imagine hype levels for Crimson Desert will grow even more ahead of its launch next week.