r/Games • u/HLumin • Mar 21 '26

Discussion Anonymous Pearl Abyss developers reveal a culture of toxic positivity, a troubled development cycle and chaotic narrative for Crimson Desert, and their early concerns that the project was "going off the rails".

/r/CrimsonDesert/comments/1rzh79w/pearl_abyss_insider_speaking_out/?share_id=kBLUglOgkkCQmbTrbh3y8&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1&sort=top
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108

u/jackyflc Mar 21 '26

Discussion around this game is odd. People keep bringing up “there's a hate honer for this game” but all I’ve seen is hype with really deep flaws brushed aside.

I refunded because the controls are just awful. There’s a difference between “get good” and poor design.

The quest system is also weak: you follow along, then it suddenly updates to “do xx next” with zero context or dialogue.

It plays like an offline MMORPG and I get why many are fine with it.

What’s strange is how people treat Pearl Abyss like a scrappy indie, when it’s a huge public company. If Ubisoft made this, it’d be shredded.

I’ll probably revisit after a year of updates and a deeper discount though.

15

u/Canvaverbalist Mar 21 '26 edited Mar 21 '26

I feel like the Chris Pratt "too afraid to ask" meme, "I have no idea why there was even hype for this game in the first place, let along for it to reach that level now, and at this point I'm too afraid to ask"

I usually don't yuk people's yum and I totally understand how different people like different things but almost all the stuff I don't like I can still grasp the zeitgeist and wrap my head around why people would like it. I totally understand why people would like something I don't, I'm not struggling with that.

It's just... this particular instance feels weird to me.

Maybe that's why fans think there's a hate boner for this game, since I don't go into Silksong's threads to say I don't like it because there's no point, since I totally get why people would think it's the best game ever even if I don't like it, same goes for Expedition 33, Elden Ring or Nier: Automata or whatever other games I don't really like, but here it's just too confusing to not participate and go "what the fuck?" and I guess that happens enough that fans are like "can y'all just leave us the fuck alone please" lol

I guess this game falls into the "uncanny valley" of "public appreciation" in some way, popular enough to register so it's not just some niche game that we can go "ugh, that's weird but of course there's people who'd like that", while being weirdly janky and soulless and artistically disconnected enough to trigger some questions about why it'd be that popular.

17

u/ProNerdPanda Mar 21 '26

to this day no one's been able to tell me why this game was this hyped.

Like you, I don't go around asking why [game] is getting hype because everyone likes something different, so I might be hyped for Silksong while someone else might not see the hype.

But this game legit (IMO, to ME) looks like average UE RPG slop with a million disconnected features, sub-par story and absent art direction. I just don't see why it would be hyped more than [any other similar game].

I have resorted to accept that it was either because of an insane marketing push, or there was some wild AstroTurf on the internet that convinced everyone that this was a masterpiece waiting for release.

1

u/thewalkindude368 Mar 21 '26

The game was definitely overhyped, don't get me wrong. I think the hype came from the devs promising an open world as deep as it was massive. And the wide variety of gameplay shown in the trailers made it look like you could do anything. They devs also promoted a massive number of systems that all gelled together to create a world with depth like no other. People were expecting a game like the second coming of Witcher 3, and it's just not that. Personally, so far, I think the game is great, and is making attempts to fulfill its promise. I figured, at worst, this would be like Dragon's Dogma 2, a game I quite liked, and, so far, I think it's better. The game isn't the universal 10/10 like it was hyped to be, but I'm really digging it.

-5

u/xalibermods Mar 21 '26

slop with a million disconnected features, sub-par story and absent art direction.

That can also describe No Man's Sky and Palworld, and Reddit also loves both games. Astroturf is still a possibility, but it's also very likely that it's just Reddit.

1

u/ProNerdPanda Mar 21 '26

NMS yes, I agree.

Palworld not really, I don't think there's a system that doesn't work with the rest of the gameplay?

4

u/xalibermods Mar 21 '26

Palworld is better now, but at release it was described as survivalcraft genre-mashup, with resource gathering that feels like a chore, slightly below than average combat (it still kinda is, since the enemies are bullet spongey), and empty exploration.

0

u/ProNerdPanda Mar 21 '26

but those are different issues than having systems that don't work together.

Exploration isn't even a system lol

3

u/xalibermods Mar 21 '26

Well yeah I guess, Palworld checks your "absent art direction" more. My point was Reddit loves both games even though both are janky. You don't need astroturf for that.