Crimson Desert Walks Back Launch Misstep With Incoming Intel Arc GPU Support

You might recall just a few days ago when, immediately after the launch of hotly-anticipated open world RPG Crimson Desert, it was discovered that it simply would not launch on Intel Arc GPUs, throwing up an error message saying that the graphics card was not supported. An error message that looked like this:


Indeed, if you checked the game's FAQ, Pearl Abyss was quite explicit about this, as under the support item "Does Crimson Desert support Intel Arc?" the text simply said "No, Crimson Desert currently does not support Intel Arc graphics cards," before advising buyers on Arc cards to seek a refund. Well, the company has changed its tune and is now claiming that, actually, Crimson Desert will be playable on Intel GPUs after all.


In a tweet posted to the official Crimson Desert Xwitter account (reproduced above), the developer says it is "currently working on compatibility and optimization support so that Crimson Desert can also be enjoyed on Intel arc GPU systems." That's good news, no matter what; there's no good reason that Intel GPUs should be excluded from one of the year's biggest game releases. Arc GPUs support all of the graphics features required by the game, and assuming it uses standard API methods, it should be relatively straightforward to get the game running.

The curious part is that the tweet continues, stating "We apologize for any confusion our FAQ wording from several hours ago [...] may have caused." I don't think anyone was confused; the message was quite clear: we're not going to fix the game on Intel GPUs, so just return it. So why the turn-around? It could be because of public outcry after Intel gave this statement to several outlets:

Getting games running smoothly is always a partnership between developers and hardware makers. Over the past several years, we’ve reached out to Pearl Abyss many times to help test, validate, and optimize support for Intel graphics, providing early hardware, drivers, and engineering resources across multiple generations, including Alchemist, Battlemage, Meteor Lake, and Lunar Lake. [...] We remain ready to assist Pearl Abyss however we can. For details on the choice not to enable Intel support at launch, please reach out directly to Pearl Abyss.
— Intel to WCCFTech

Many outlets interpreted this message as Pearl Abyss specifically snubbing Intel GPUs for Crimson Desert after years of cooperation on the title. That's probably not exactly accurate; Intel is likely referring to years of cooperation with the developer on its previous game, Black Desert Online (BDO). Now, BDO uses the same BlackSpace game engine as Crimson Desert, so it's not clear to us why the company would elect to spurn Intel GPUs in this way, but it could have something to do with the fact that the game does not work at all on Intel GPUs at this time.


We tested Crimson Desert on the Intel Arc B580 graphics card with the latest Intel driver and the latest game patch version this morning. You get this ironic error message on boot, and then continuing into the game, all seems well until you actually get into gameplay. The visuals are totally broken, and while performance is acceptable at 1080p "Cinematic," it's hard to judge whether it's realistic considering how broken the graphics are. Also, the game crashed when we attempted to screenshot it.

Hopefully Pearl Abyss and/or Intel can ship updates that get the game working well on Arc GPUs. In the meantime, I'll keep playing it on my Ryzen 7 8700G's integrated graphics, where it runs remarkably well with ray-tracing. If you're also playing, head over here to check out the full patch notes.