Crimson Desert studio Pearl Abyss sees share price plummet by nearly 30% after first reviews arrive
The visually stunning adventure game isn’t reviewing as well as the market had hoped
The South Korean company behind Crimson Desert has seen a large drop in its share price following the first reviews of the game.
Pearl Abyss, which both publishes and develops Crimson Desert, was sitting on a share price of ₩65,600 ($43.79) when the market closed on Wednesday.
The review embargo for the game then lifted on Wednesday night, and the initial critical reception has been moderately positive, but not overwhelmingly so.
As a result, as reported by Seoul Economic Daily, when the stock market opened again today the share price for Pearl Abyss immediately dropped to ₩47,800 ($31.90), a drop of around 27%.
At the time of writing, the market has closed for the day in South Korea, and the final share price is ₩46,000 ($30.70), making for a total one-day drop of 29.8%.
Crimson Desert’s Metacritic score currently stands at 78, which is considered “generally favourable” on the site’s grading scale.
It appears, however, that the market was expecting the game to receive a far greater critical reception, especially given the hype surrounding its visually impressive environments.
It’s possible that the share price may see a rise in the coming days, because despite the lower than expected Metacritic score it appears that Crimson Desert is still on track to sell well.
The game is currently number one on Steam‘s top-selling games chart (compared to ninth last week), suggesting a large number of players have pre-ordered it as the release nears.
Dr Serkan Toto, CEO of Japan games industry consultancy firm Kantan Games, also noted on X that the game is currently number 4 in the US PlayStation sales chart (in terms of dollar sales) behind just MLB The Show 26, NBA 2K26 and Fortnite.
Earlier this week Sony confirmed that Crimson Desert will support the improved PSSR which has been rolling out on PlayStation 5 Pro this month.
The improved PSSR is based on AMD’s FSR4 and debuted with Resident Evil Requiem earlier this month, before being added to 11 more games including Alan Wake 2, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Silent Hill F and Nioh 3.
