Here’s What Crimson Desert’s Double Hotfixes Just Fixed
Paul Tassi, ·2026-04-24·via Forbes - Innovation
Crimson Desert
Pearl Abyss
Crimson Desert has had what may be its first major stumble since its Metacritic score dropped Pearl Abyss’s stock by a sharp margin. But it’s sold well (stock recovered!) and players generally have liked it far more than critics, including how Pearl Abyss is able to patch in huge additions and quality of life changes rapidly. But while this latest patch added some cool things, it broke many, many key parts of the game.
Pearl Abyss has been trying to patch things back up, now up to two hotfixes in 24 hours. I tried to hop in, but I kept running into issues (getting any items would not appear on the right side of my screen), and I was going to just tap out until it was better. Is it better? I’ve given these two hotfixes a try, and mostly, yes. If you want to know what was fixed, and if it solved a problem you may have been having, you can check out the dual lists below that Pearl Abyss provided.
First Hotfix
[Controller] Changed the button used to change the names of pets and horses from (R3/RS) to (L3/LS).
Fixed an issue where certain owned mounts were not appearing in the Quick Slot, preventing them from being summoned.
[PlayStation/Xbox] Changed the "Change Preset" option to be displayed the same way as on PC.
Fixed an issue where pets would eat wood or ore gathered with a logging axe or pickaxe.
[Keyboard/Mouse] Fixed an issue where furniture could not be placed while using housing mode in certain situations.
Fixed an issue where crashes could occur while dyeing or changing customization.
Fixed an issue where stamina would recover when sheathing and unsheathing certain weapons while sprinting.
[Damiane] Fixed an issue where Blinding Flash was canceled in safe zones.
[Kliff] Fixed an issue where the flight speed of Focused Aerial Roll became slower than intended.
[Oongka/Damiane] Fixed an issue where ranged weapons could not target anything other than bosses during boss battles.
Fixed an issue where the game would return to the title screen when observing a skill that had already been acquired by consuming an Abyss Artifact while the inventory was full.
Please note that if you were unable to recover an Abyss Artifact by observing an already acquired skill while your inventory was full, you can recover the Abyss Artifact by using the Reset All function.
Fixed an issue where hit effects were displayed when attacking NPCs that could not be attacked while wearing a Mask.
Fixed an issue where the game would crash during combat with a certain boss when using a customized character. (To avoid spoilers, the relevant boss is listed in the dropdown menu below.)
Hotfix 2
Improved the game so that changes to the Minimum Font Size settings are applied immediately.
Fixed an issue where starting a new game while a separate save file existed applied a game difficulty setting apart from the one actually selected.
Fixed an issue where some parts of the Guides UI were disabled.
Fixed an issue where parts of the fishing dock vendor's and tanner's shop UI were displayed awkwardly.
Fixed an issue where changing a Pet's name would change the name of a non-Pet animal in the trust increase notifications.
[Keyboard/Mouse] Fixed an issue where key inputs would not work while adjusting Others > Video > HDR.
Fixed an issue where, when the Extra Rewards List and Content Guide UIs overlapped, the Content UI in the back would be interacted with first.
Fixed an issue where the fadeout in some shop cutscenes occurred too slowly.
Fixed an issue where horse gear could not be dyed.
Fixed various localization errors across all languages.
Slightly increased character movement speed. (This change was applied in Patch Version 1.04.00)
[PlayStation 5 Pro] Fixed an issue where screen brightness would become unstable when "PSSR Sharpness" was enabled.
Added a Greymane Contribution Shop with Carl at the Greymane Camp. (This change was applied in Patch Version 1.04.00.)
When expanding the camp, furniture placed in the house will no longer be retrieved. (This change was applied in Patch Version 1.04.00)
However, if the house layout is changed through housing mode, all placed furniture will be retrieved.
Improved the Greymane Camp. (To avoid spoilers, changes related to this content are listed in the dropdown menu below.)
When relocating the Greymane Camp to Pailune, furniture placed in the house will now be moved together as well. (This change was applied in Patch Version 1.04.00)
Were my issues fixed? Items are appearing again for me. The mounts are back, as it states. Vendor rep and contracts are fixed. My game looked kind of weird and washed out when I went back in, but playing around with the settings, it’s back to looking better again. I think there’s still more to fix for sure after this last patch, but they do seem to have tackled the largest issues.
I will cut Pearl Abyss some slack, certainly, given how great they’ve been with these patches. But it’s not ideal to launch one and have the focus be on what it broke, rather than what it added, and hopefully they can avoid that next time.
