Has Red Desert’s 95 score blown up the internet? Can people still hype it up even after not finishing it in 100 hours?

It finally booted up on Saturday afternoon, and when I saw the news about Crimson Desert, my first reaction wasn’t how high a 95 score was, but: just how much of a time sink is this game? For working people like us, whether the score is high or not is one thing; whether you can actually get a handle on it over the weekend is the real cost.

The situation is pretty simple. On March 19, the review embargo for Crimson Desert was lifted. Forbes editor Paul Tassi gave it a 95, but then he followed up by saying he had already played for a full 100 hours and still hadn’t finished the main story. That’s when the controversy started: if you haven’t finished the game, can you really give it such a high score?

Some players went straight to social media and asked: Metacritic already has 94 reviews up, so how many of those reviewers actually reached the ending? That criticism hits hard, because a lot of players assume one basic standard: you should at least finish the game before telling me whether it’s worth it.

That said, Paul Tassi’s explanation isn’t unreasonable. He said he was playing at the pace of a normal player, doing side quests and exploring along the way, rather than rushing straight through the main story just to meet a review deadline. He also mentioned that if you don’t strengthen your character through side content and exploration, the later difficulty spikes sharply and can easily leave players overwhelmed. In other words, this isn’t the kind of game you can “blast through to the ending over a weekend.” It’s more like a pot that needs to simmer slowly.

There was another line in the original report that feels especially important: it might be the largest single-player game he has ever seen. In a broader 2026 landscape where many AAA campaigns have been compressed to under 20 hours, a massive game like Crimson Desert really does make the traditional review process awkward. The media is racing against time, while the game demands that you take it slow. Those two things are naturally at odds.

Personally, I think the standard of “no review before finishing” makes sense for most games; but for a title like Crimson Desert, which is clearly built around world exploration, side-content progression, and a long-form experience, it really is an exception. The issue isn’t whether it can be scored before completion, but whether outlets should clearly state that “I haven’t finished it yet.” You can absolutely give an early-stage evaluation, but don’t let players mistake it for a conclusion based on a full completed playthrough.

For ordinary players, the most valuable part of this news isn’t really the 95 score, but the 100 hours. That basically tells you in advance: Crimson Desert is very likely not a game with a low barrier to entry or a low time cost. If you usually only play in short bursts, it may feel like following a TV series so long you can never finish it—exciting, yes, but genuinely draining. On the other hand, if you love poking around open worlds and slowly building up your character, then its value for money might actually be very high, like buying out many weekends all at once.

My advice is straightforward: if you mainly care about the main story, have limited time, and only average patience, don’t let the high score go to your head just yet; wait for more full-completion reviews and player feedback before deciding whether to buy in. But if you already enjoy massive single-player games and are willing to trade time for immersion, then the signals Crimson Desert has given off so far at least suggest that it really does have plenty of content. As for whether that 95 is justified, it’s still too early to say—but the fact that it’s “huge and very time-consuming” is basically confirmed at this point.