Pearl Abyss has held RPG fans hostage for long enough, as the hype for Crimson Desert reaches the boiling point. As we creep towards the March 19th release, like any modern beautiful game, one of the main concerns with Crimson Desert is ‘can my rig run this without exploding’.
Today, the developers have taken a small mercy and dropped a comprehensive hardware and performance breakdown for PC, Mac, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Given the scope and depth of Crimson Desert, there was some apprehension over whether the game would run well on the working man’s gaming PC, or if it would require auctioning off a kidney to upgrade in this economy.
Fortunately, it seems Pearl Abyss has risen to the occasion, with market-appropriate specs that your average Steam hardware survey rig can happily run.
Crimson Desert PC Hardware Requirements
Looking at the PC system specs sheet, it’s refreshing to see that you can play a modern, beautiful game with legacy cards like the GTX 1660 while still hitting 30 FPS at 1080p, albeit in low settings.
For 60 FPS at the same resolution, you need the equivalent of an RTX 2080 or RX 6700XT, and either a Ryzen 5 5600 or i5 11600K CPU.
Hitting 4K at 60 FPS is not going to come cheap, however, as internal testing by Pearl Abyss shows an RX 9070XT or RTX 5070Ti is needed. The AMD offering is the most affordable by a decent shot at the moment, after finally stabilizing around $600. The 5070Ti is going to set you back approximately $1000, but it performs reasonably better in most benchmarks.
There was some apprehension over whether [Crimson Desert] would run well on the working man’s gaming PC
Regardless of your display preferences, you will need 16GB of RAM to play Crimson Desert, which is on par with most modern games.
The most demanding part of the specs sheet is down at the storage row: Crimson Desert requires 150GB of your precious drive space to run, putting it on par with the AAA crowd for spaciousness.
Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 Settings
As usual, the lower end of the console performance scale is reserved for the humble Xbox Series S. At 720p, Xbox’s budget offering targets 40 FPS on Performance mode, while aiming for 30 FPS at native 1080p. Raytracing is not available.
On the Xbox Series X, Performance outputs 60 FPS at 1080p with low raytracing settings. Balanced, meanwhile, offers 40 FPS at upscaled 4K from 1280p. The Quality preset runs at 30 FPS on upscaled 4K, this time from 1440p, and with raytracing effects set to High.
Crimson Desert’s Open-World Will Be Twice the Size of Skyrim
Backed by a brand-new engine, Crimson Desert will launch on March 19th.
The base PlayStation 5 mirrors the presets and performance of the Xbox Series X, while the beefier PS5 Pro runs raytracing on High even in Performance mode, with 60 FPS and upscaled 4K from 1080p. The Balanced setting outputs 40 FPS on upscaled 4K (from 1440p).
Finally, the Quality mode on the PlayStation 5 Pro gives you Crimson Desert at native 4K, with Ultra raytracing settings, and 30 FPS.
Mac and ROG Ally Performance
Given Apple’s love for running a PC business with a console mentality, the Crimson Desert Mac performance is heavily dependent on the model. Across the board, Pearl Abyss recommends running the ‘For this Mac’ preset that will adapt the game to your specific hardware.
Reaching 60 FPS on 1080p will require the M3 Pro, M4 Pro, or M5 chip, using both MetalFX upscaling and frame interpolation (available from macOS 26). 60 FPS/4K is reserved for the M3 Ultra and M4 Max chips.
On the ROG Xbox Ally handheld, the standard version targets 40 FPS at 720p in Performance mode.
Owners of the ROG Xbox Ally X can hit 60 FPS at upscaled 1080p with that same preset. By disabling Frame Generation, the Performance Mode reaches 40 FPS. Meanwhile, Quality targets 30 FPS at native 1080p.
Crimson Desert comes out for Windows, macOS, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on March 19th, 2026, with preorders already available.
Crimson Desert Preview: It’s Not A Mirage, It’s Medieval Musou Mayhem
I guess it’s named Crimson Desert on account of the endless blood you’ll spill.
- Released
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March 19, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language
