Crismon Desert is the #1 selling game on Steam, the PlayStation Store, and the Xbox Store right now. The new and ambitious open-world RPG finally released this past week after years of anticipation and delays. Its reception has been somewhat mixed, but this hasn’t been nearly enough to nerf its popularity. To this end, it’s on course to be one of the best-selling games of 2026 come December. In the meantime, developer Pearl Abyss has promised that updates are coming that will improve the game’s performance and clean up its bugs. It’s also now promised that it’s going to remove some controversial content, which it claims ended up in the game accidentally.
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South Korean developer Pearl Abyss has specifically announced that the AI-generated assets in the game were “unintentionally included” and will now be removed. According to Pearly Abyss, the tools made to use the assets were used in the early stages of development of Crimson Desert as stand-in assets, with the expectation that they would later be removed. It appears some of this content slipped past the goalie, though, and ended up in the final game.
Crimson Desert Developer Apologizes
“We sincerely apologize for these oversights,” reads a statement on the matter from the game’s official X account. “We are currently conducting a comprehensive audit of all in-game assets and are taking steps to replace any affected content. Updated assets will be rolled out in upcoming patches. In parallel, we are reviewing and strengthening our internal processes to ensure greater transparency and consistency in how we communicate with players moving forward.”

For what it is worth, this does happen somewhat often. Placeholder assets will often end up being in the final product here and there for the simple reason that they are missed when developers go back through the game and replace them. That said, sometimes it is never even caught because said assets, while placeholder, aren’t made with AI, and thus don’t draw the same attention as the art asset above has.
Crimson Desert developer Pearl Abyss did not provide a clear timeline on when this AI content will be removed, but the fix should be fairly easy, so it should come with the next update or two.
All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the conversation over on the ComicBook Forum.








