After the embargo, Crimson Desert sits at 78 on Metacritic

When the embargo lifted, Metacritic had Crimson Desert at 78 out of 100 from 82 reviews. OpenCritic at that moment was 80 out of 100 from 44. The top of the sheet: DualShockers 9.5, Generación Xbox 94, MMORPG.com and LevelUp at 9, Gamersky 8.6, COGconnected 84, and GamingBolt, GameRant, GameMAG and Gameblog at 8.

DualShockers writes about the volume after 100 hours and does not treat a weak story and unfair bosses as decisive. Eurogamer and VG247 give 3 out of 5: there is a lot of world and little character, and the best parts sit under layers. PCGamesN gives 6 out of 10, WellPlayed 5.5 and the phrase “single-player MMORPG.” ACG says to wait for a sale.

The argument across these scores is one argument: scale and image are praised, story, bosses and interface are not.