Although Pearl Abyss’s game hasn’t been released yet, estimates of how many copies it has already sold on one platform are already in.

Pearl Abyss’s long-awaited open-world adventure game, Crimson Desert, launches tomorrow on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and PC, and according to analytics firm Alinea Analytics, the game’s launch could be just as significant as the world of Pywell itself. In the firm’s latest newsletter, analyst Rhys Elliott reports that Crimson Desert has already sold nearly 400,000 copies on Steam alone, which is estimated to represent $20 million in revenue from pre-orders on Valve’s digital platform.

Despite widespread concerns about the game’s performance on consoles and lower-end PCs, as well as the last-minute implementation of Denuvo DRM, nearly 10% of sales occurred within a 24-hour period. That says a lot about how little players seemed to care about those controversies, even when they were causing a serious stir online. Reportedly, 363,000 copies had been sold on Steam, and as of March 16, the game appeared on 2.2 million wish lists, alongside popular titles also played by those users, including The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which accounted for 62%.

Crimson Desert is already well on its way to opening stronger than Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, although in the case of Clair Obscur, nobody really knew how successful it would become until release. In the end, we will soon see just how strong Crimson Desert’s launch really is. If it avoids major technical problems – especially on the base PlayStation 5 – and players end up having a smooth overall experience, that will only fuel even more positive word of mouth, and the game may well live up to the expectations surrounding it.

It may even manage to stand beside Grand Theft Auto VI as one of the year’s defining games.

Source: WCCFTech, Substack