Crimson Desert

Icyseanfitz · 22-03-2026 08:31PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124331404#Comment_124331404

Can't say that I give a ****, if a game is good it's good, putting some background AI art doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Pretending like ai generative tools won't be the norm in assisting any artistic or productive venture in the next few years is akin to sticking your head in the sand imo.

Penn · 22-03-2026 08:51PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124333139#Comment_124333139

And yet the reason the AI art in this game was identified, is because it's sh*t. And the more AI art is accepted, the more it'll be used for other parts of a game, until more and more of it is sh*t. Meanwhile game devs continue losing jobs left, right and centre because of it.

johnny_ultimate · 22-03-2026 08:58PM

Yep, some of us do care about crap AI assets making their way into games and will make our decisions on which games to support accordingly.

Not that this game was ever of any real interest to me anyway, but the AI assets do little to alleviate the strong sense from reviews, impressions and marketing that the game is a random collection of mechanics jumbled together carelessly without much in the way of thought or artistic / gameplay coherency. If others have a different takeaway, fair enough - enjoy your time with it! For the rest of us, there are more games worthy of our attention than any of us will ever have the time to play.

Icyseanfitz · 22-03-2026 09:32PM

What will ye do in 10 years when all games are made using AI and a small team?

Each to their own but I would rather judge a game on playing it and deciding if it's fun or not as opposed to whether it fits my sensibilities and assumptions as to how games have and should be made.

Crimson desert has plenty to criticise, but some random background art that plays no role other than a placeholder is not one imo.

Glebee · 22-03-2026 09:36PM

Must be getting old, no idea what the issue is. 😔😔🤣🤣

Unearthly · 22-03-2026 09:41PM

The AI thing is an interesting thing. Nearly every company is balls deep in it. Sure I lost my job to it recently. I’d love to boycott everything that is involved in it but I’m afraid I’d be living a very sheltered life. It’s in things you aren’t even aware of

Icyseanfitz · 22-03-2026 09:50PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124333329#Comment_124333329

Sorry to hear it's impacted you personally, I'd imagine it will be impacting all of us (in or outside of tech) greatly in the next few years. As you said, it's in everything now, cats out of the bag and it ain't going back.

johnny_ultimate · 22-03-2026 10:35PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124333311#Comment_124333311

I feel extremely comfortable predicting that in ten years time the best and most interesting games will continue to be made by human teams without gen AI.

While I think the AI gold rush will lead to job losses (as this very thread sadly illustrates), there is nothing inevitable about it ‘taking over’ even if it will become more prevalent. Public sentiment is generally extremely AI critical (look at the DLSS5 controversy this week). Corporations are pushing it solely for selfish financial means. Great art will continue to be made in abundance, AI free, because humans are creative beings whereas algorithms are not.

Retr0gamer · 22-03-2026 11:59PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124333311#Comment_124333311

I'll play good games made by creatives?

I mean the art AI creates has a really unappealing aesthetic, and I don't think people really understand what the toughest and longest part of game dev is. It's not the coding, it's the iteration, balancing and big fixes.

The only vibe coding I've seen have been people ripping off other people's work and that's the level of creativity you will get from people using a copyright infringement engine.

Icyseanfitz · 23-03-2026 12:13AM

Look we will have to agree to disagree, I personally see AI transforming any and all creative and productivity projects going forward (for better or worse) but that's a different discussion for a different thread.

Crimson desert is a game that has some AI art in it, if people want to use that as the reason not play that's up them, after putting 7 hours into it I could find better reasons. Saying that I'm actually having fun with exploring it's different system, world and complexities. Currently doing bounties, I love that once you've tied up a bounty you can toss them 30 feet while carrying them.

Potential-Monke · 23-03-2026 12:38AM

Well this is a first. I'm having my ass handed to me by a poisonous D8... this game is so random, I love it! Bloody Reed Devil took quite a while too, but got the baxtard eventually.

Fair bit of the lower left side of the map explored. Made friends with kids, met enemies I'm not ready for, found ancient things I can't activate yet. Slow game, but once you start getting to the grips with everything that's going on it gets better. Not perfect, all the games it borrows from do it better, but A for effort and i don't think many other games give you this amount of different things to do.

Now hopefully the release a patch soon to bring in inventory management. My biggest bugbear at the moment. About 20 hours played, and back to stoopid work for the week, so won't get as much playtime as I want...

Penn · 23-03-2026 09:17AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124333697#Comment_124333697

I don't disagree that AI will continue to be used in some forms of the game-making process, probably at almost every level. It's pretty inevitable. But AI is being sold as this panacea that will greatly revolutionise and streamline everything, and it simply won't. AI is entirely derivitive and can only take from what's already existing, aggregate all results by mashing them together and averaging it all out, and then spurt out something which (as in the case of the artwork in Crimson Desert) is likely wrong.

The aggregation of what it returns is also a big issue because the more AI is used, the more homogenised the results will be, and games will end up looking the same. There's nothing better than when you find that little something in a game that only somebody who loved working on the game could have added; that little reference, or joke, or just that little bit of unnecessary flair which adds so much. AI doesn't even look at what it has created, it just churns out what it thinks the user is looking for.

AI should be a tool which helps creators create. Instead, the more readily it's accepted, it'll be used by execs to cut workforces, replace creators/designers, and just churn out bullsh*t.

Potential-Monke · 23-03-2026 09:40AM

Massive patch dropped overnight, they must be on boards!

- Added storage box, you can finally store items at the Greymanes camp, unlocked in chapter 3

- Keyboard and mouse controls have been adjusted massively, for controller, inputs like jumping are now more responsive

- Added more fast travel points around the map

- Many boss fights and encounters were made easier

- Knowledge takes less time to gain

- Force palm is now learned much earlier in the story

- It is now faster to chop down trees

- Ores, collectibles and bonfires are now discovered automatically when near them

- Improved camera movement when aiming a bow at a brazier and adjusted the range for lighting arrows accordingly.

- Added effects for damaging structures at enemy strongholds, destroying the infirmary for example results in wounded enemies no longer returning

- Improved the visuals for many puzzles

- Lantern range is increased for clues

Icyseanfitz · 23-03-2026 09:51AM

That's the benefit of having previously creating an mmo id imagine, ability to fix and adjust things on the fly

Cordell · 23-03-2026 10:24AM

The quarry robot was quite easy, just avoid its attack and chip away. The bandits in the quarry were a lot more annoying, especially when they came in waves and with an elite bandit with them.

On the AI debate: imagine a senior dev designing an asset (a tree let's say) and ask the junior team to make 10 variations. Now they can use AI. In both cases there will be artistic value and uniqueness, but the later will be faster and cheaper. That's how jobs will be lost, the workload will be reduced and the productivity will be increased, and there's no going back now. There is indeed an AI bubble a the moment, affecting everything from office jobs to software engineers to silicon supply, but eventually things will settle and AI will be just another tool and no one will have any problem with it anymore.

Potential-Monke · 23-03-2026 06:58PM

Update has made a significant improvement. Aside from being able to empty out the inventory, the learning time is a second now, movement feels a bit sharper, and the extra fast travel points will be handy. Great response by Pearl Abyss, have to give it to them.

brady12 · 23-03-2026 11:27PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124335421#Comment_124335421

Ya big improvement on one patch alone !

18 hours in and only after getting the home base .

Game is awesome . Yotei was some game but i'd rate this above it so far . Just not quite KD2 levels of good .

Icyseanfitz · 24-03-2026 12:24AM

yeah I've about 17 hours now, haven't finished chapter 2 yet, haven't gotten the base and I'm loving it now, was finding the exploration lacking at the start but now the more i venture out from the starting town the stranger and more interesting stuff I'm finding. **** that children's village btw annoying little fuckers :D

Icyseanfitz · 24-03-2026 08:54AM

So ign have given a final review of 6, I understand how someone might bounce off this but it really isn't a 6, a 7 or 8 maybe but not a 6

Penn · 24-03-2026 09:05AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124336281#Comment_124336281

Sounds like a few of the issues most reviewers had were patched out or somewhat addressed in the Day One patch, and more in the latest patch. That said, their reasoning for their score is more important than the final number, and reading IGN's review, the reviewer put 130 hours into the game. It kinda has to be said that it's a fair review even if you disagree with it.

Cordell · 24-03-2026 10:14AM

I would argue against it, but who cares about IGN anymore?

McFly85 · 24-03-2026 10:23AM

Reviews are just opinions, there’s no wrong answer. If you don’t agree with the reviewer then move on and find one you generally do agree with.

Cordell · 24-03-2026 10:27AM

A professional reviewer should make an effort to see the game though the audience's eyes, otherwise it's just someone with an opinion, which it's given an unfair amount of weight being featured on IGN.

johnny_ultimate · 24-03-2026 10:35AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124336471#Comment_124336471

‘The audience’ is not a homogenous blob.

Every single review - whether professional critic, YouTuber or poster on boards.ie - is just an opinion, and should not pretend to be anything else.

Penn · 24-03-2026 10:40AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124336471#Comment_124336471

The "audience" is millions of people with disparate views, opinions, wants, sensibilities, skill levels etc. A review will always just be an opinion. It's impossible to be entirely objective in a review.

Professional reviewers are typically gamers who are usually assigned to a game because they like that genre or similar types of games. A good reviewer can write well enough to distinguish between what they find to be objective about a game (in terms of overall quality of design, controls, performance) and their subjective opinion (they didn't like X because of these reasons, Y could have been better if they did this instead, Z just didn't feel intuitive). And so long as their reasons for these opinions are well explained and considered, that's what really matters, and what people should use to decide if they want to buy the game or not (particularly taking into account multiple trusted reviews and seeing what the general consensus is).

The trouble is people boil it down to that final number score and ignore everything else.

Cordell · 24-03-2026 10:58AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124336488#Comment_124336488

Yes, tha was my point too, the IGN review it's just an opinion which should be equally as relevant as mine or yours. Or even less, since we paid for the game, we're not paid to play it.

johnny_ultimate · 24-03-2026 11:15AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124336541#Comment_124336541

I actually often find that many of the most vocal players paying for a game (or, in a more intense example, a piece of hardware) at launch are potentially more inclined to be biased in its favour, as they feel ‘invested’ in it in a way a more neutral observer will not. Often hard for some people to accept they have spent money on something they don’t really like.

That is not always the case by any means, but there are certainly plenty of vocal people out there who get very riled up about gaming software and hardware they have purchased.

awec · 24-03-2026 11:25AM

In fairness to IGN, their reviewer did give it a 6 after playing it to completion at over 100 hours, so they gave it more than a fair chance and are probably better positioned than anyone on the thread to give an overall impression of it.

The criticisms seemed to mainly be that it's very janky and the boss fights are really bad and completely out of kilter with the difficulty level of the rest of the game.

Penn · 24-03-2026 11:28AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/124336541#Comment_124336541

What's your real name?

Rhetorical question obviously, just making the point that professional reviewers put their name to their reviews. They have to put their reputation to their reviews. They have to put the reputation of the site they work for to their reviews.

Past reviews or comments are also regularly thrown back at reviewers/sites to dismiss their opinions, rightly or wrongly (eg. the "Too much water" Pokemon review, or the Cuphead tutorial issue).

The game may not cost them money since they're given review codes, but they have a lot more skin in the game with their reviews than any Joe Soap. If we get a review badly wrong, who cares? If they get one wrong, they do damage to their own reputation, their site, respect in the industry, possible connections to developers for previews/review codes/events etc.

Probably moving too far off-topic at this stage. I'd just say, if the IGN reviewer, after playing for 130 hours, gave the game a 6, he believes it's a 6, and his reasons for that should be laid out in his review.

Potential-Monke · 24-03-2026 11:33AM

If I went by reviewers, I would never have played Forspoken or Immortals of Aveum, both of which became firm favourites of mine, each doing something unique or different. Both not without issues, but vastly overblown by reviewers and ugh, streamers. We'll never know if the theory that the second in a series is usually the best would have applied.

But delighted to see people are trying CD for themselves. As I said above, it doesn't do any single thing better than the games it borrows from, but it gives you everything they offered combined. Plus, 20 hours in and the new things keep coming. And I'm still in the starting region mainly. Starting to branch out now, camp coming along nicely.

Crimson Desert

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