Crimson Desert Adds Controversial Feature One Week Before Launch (and Fans Are Concerned)

Many RPG fans have been eagerly awaiting the release of Pearl Abyss’s Crimson Desert. With promises of a massive open-world to rival the likes of Skyrim, many gamers suspect Crimson Desert could easily become the reigning top RPG of 2026. The highly anticipated game is set for a multi-platform launch on March 19th. But ahead of its arrival on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, Pearl Abyss has quietly added a controversial feature to the game’s Steam build. And fans aren’t happy.

A recent update to Crimson Desert‘s Steam page confirms the addition of Denuvo anti-tamper software. Theoretically, this software is intended to prevent cheating and piracy. But many gamers hate it, and not just because it prevents hacks and mods. Denuvo is notorious for causing serious PC performance issues, which means most any game that uses it faces pretty immediate backlash from gamers. And from the looks of it, Crimson Desert is no different.

Crimson Desert Faces Pre-Launch Backlash for Adding Denuvo on Steam

Just a week ahead of launch, Denuvo has been confirmed by an update to Crimson Desert’s Steam page. For many, this feels like an attempt to sneak in an unpopular piece of software just ahead of launch. Fans are especially frustrated because adding it this late in the game means that those who’ve played the game in preview form likely experienced it without Denuvo. And that could mean that the game players get on launch day will run a lot differently than what many expected.

“I love when developers shadow drop performance issues,” says one Reddit comment in response to the news. Indeed, Denuvo is unpopular largely because it tends to cause serious performance issues on PC. The additional CPU consumed by the program running in the background often leads to lower FPS, slower loading times, and stuttering. Given how many big RPG launches have already been plagued with performance issues on PC, many fans are understandably concerned about what adding Denuvo will mean for Crimson Desert on PC.

Read Next

Crimson Desert Pre-Orders Are On Sale Right Now

Crimson Desert is far from the first game to face backlash for using Denuvo. Games like inZOI have gotten such firm feedback from fans that they actually backpedaled the decision to use the anti-tamper software ahead of launch. However, fans are frustrated at the timing of this addition. Previewers have been raving about the game’s performance on PC, and many are concerned about whether Denuvo was included in these early builds or not.

Issues with Denuvo aside, this particular concern may prove to be unfounded. According to journalist Paul Tassi, Pearl Abyss claims that preview builds and benchmarks did indeed include the “exact same implementation of Denuvo that is in the launch build.” If that’s the case, previews should hopefully be an accurate representation of how the RPG will run on PC when it arrives on March 17th.

The news has many planning to pivot away from playing the game on PC. Crimson Desert will also launch for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, so those who fear that their PC’s performance will be hampered by Denuvo do have those options… provided they own one of these consoles and haven’t already pre-ordered the game on Steam.

What do you think of Crimson Desert adding Denuvo this close to launch? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!