Crimson Desert

Pearl Abyss

Crimson Desert just announced that it hit 5 million sales in a month, in the wake of great player reviews and long playtime that has kept the entirely single-player game over 100,000 concurrent players a night on Steam since launch.

It didn’t start out that great, however, as critic reviews put the game at a 77 on Metacritic, a “C+” in the scheme of video game scores, and that was poor enough in the context of expectations that it crashed Pearl Abyss stock (which recovered once those big sales numbers came in).

Now, if critics come around to the game, give it more time, and play a better version of what we were given to test, I do think Crimson Desert has a solid shot at a GOTY nomination at The Game Awards in 2026. If so, that would make it the lowest-Metacritic-scored nominee for that category in the history of the show.

While some have been in the lower 80s, there has never been a GOTY nominee in the 70s before, and Crimson Desert would be a first. Here is the lowest Metacritic score for each year going back to 2014 in The Game Awards:

• 2025: Kingdom Come Deliverance II – 88
• 2024: Black Myth: Wukong – 81
• 2023: Alan Wake 2 – 88
• 2022: A Plague Tale: Requiem - 82
• 2021: Resident Evil Village – 84
• 2020: Ghost of Tsushima – 83
• 2019: The Outer Worlds – 85
• 2018: Marvel’s Spider-Man – 87
• 2017: PUBG – 86
• 2016: Titanfall 2 – 89
• 2015: Fallout 4 – 87
• 2014: Midde-Earth: Shadow of Mordor - 84

So, Crimson Desert’s 77 would be the lowest. It is notable that none of those games above actually won, of course.

First, why could it get a GOTY nomination? In addition to it being better than critics initially said, we can look at its competition. Obviously, GTA 6 is the big question mark, whether it will finally hit its release date, and it’s desperately hard to imagine it will not be a frontrunner for GOTY, if not an automatic winner. Past that, I’d say Pokopia and Resident Evil Requiem are likely. Depending on how they turn out, Marvel’s Wolverine and Xbox’s Fable could be more slots. There is certainly room for Crimson Desert.

Why would the same critics who didn’t like the game suddenly vote for Crimson Desert? Once again, I have to circle back to the review period where Pearl Abyss gave us a flat-out worse version of the game. Barely any inventory space, barely any fast-travel points, worse controls, brick wall bosses, the list goes on, and most of that stuff was fixed either in a day one patch or the one after that. Every week, more things are changed and added to make the game better. So by this winter, Crimson Desert is going to be a much, much better game than we had to review (I will once again brag here that I looked past all that and gave it a 9.5, given how fun the game still was at its core).

I certainly think Crimson Desert deserves “re-reviews” from critics after more time is put in and all these changes are experienced. However, sites like Metacritic and OpenCritic do not allow you to change your scores after the initial ones you submit, so that would not raise its 77.

Critics have also reluctantly admitted they were maybe too harsh before, giving something like Wukong a nomination despite its pretty low 81 score. Low in the context of a GOTY contender, at least, as we’ve just shown.

I think Crimson Desert will make the list. And if so, it will make history.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.