“Red Desert” got a score of 78? Shroud was pretty restrained this time

To get straight to the point, let me start with something that really caught my attention: Shroud spent about 105 hours just to finish the main story of “Crimson Desert,” and even after beating it, he planned to keep grinding bosses and content off-stream. That’s actually pretty rare in the streaming scene. For a top streamer who gets bombarded with new releases every day, being willing to stay immersed for a hundred hours already shows the game is at least “chewy” enough—not the kind of fast-food title you beat in two nights and then uninstall.

On top of that, what’s more interesting is how “measured” his evaluation is. On stream, his verdict on “Crimson Desert” was that it’s a “very solid good game,” and he specifically stressed that it was a “solid 100 hours” and that he had a lot of fun and genuinely enjoyed it. The wording sounds a bit like what you’d say after finishing a content-stuffed but slightly clunky action RPG—something along the lines of “if The Witcher 3 kept only the satisfying combat and then stuffed in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey levels of quest volume.” It’s undeniably fun, but not the kind of game people put on a pedestal as a masterpiece.

Score-wise, he put it in the 78–82 range, which is actually quite close to its current 77 on Metacritic, basically corroborating the media’s general stance. Shroud also added: if they did small fixes across the board, it could maybe be bumped to around 85. That feels a lot like an already fully formed but not yet polished indie action game—like the early version of “Dead Cells.” The core framework is strong, the pacing works, but there are always some small rough edges that poke at you. Only after a round of DLC and patches did the reputation really settle in.

From the perspective of someone who prefers indie games, my reaction to all this is a bit like: your friend recommends you a long, “information-dense” JRPG, and as someone who usually only plays compact titles like “Celeste” and “Hollow Knight,” you can tell there’s a ton of content, but it also feels a bit overwhelming. Reports describe “Crimson Desert” as “absolutely packed” with content, which lines up with Shroud’s “solid” comment. This kind of content-dump approach is pretty common in AAA, but for someone like me who prefers tight, concentrated design, it’s hard not to worry that the pacing gets dragged out—like taking something that could have been a “Hyper Light Drifter”-style refined adventure and forcibly stretching it into a sprawling open-world epic.

What’s interesting is that this time he was very clear: he won’t be championing “Crimson Desert” as Game of the Year the way he did for “Black Myth: Wukong.” That contrast actually says a lot. For him, “Black Myth” was more like the surprise you get when “Celeste meets Undertale”—a beautiful synergy of creativity, presentation, and execution—whereas “Crimson Desert” is more about solid production scale plus decent fun, but it lacks that one table-slamming, unforgettable hook. Put simply, “Black Myth” is the kind of love you’re willing to argue about; “Crimson Desert” is the kind of good where you nod after finishing and say, “Yeah, that was nice.”

So what does that mean for players still on the fence, especially indie-leaning players like me? If you happen to be craving a big medieval action blockbuster you can sink into for a long time, and you don’t mind a large-scale open world, then Shroud’s 78–82 score is actually a pretty safe “worth a try” tag. But if you usually prefer high-density, tightly designed indie titles, where every system has that “one mechanic, ten different clever uses” kind of ingenuity, then “Crimson Desert” will probably feel a bit like “too much content, not enough creativity”—an experience closer to a very plentiful but slightly greasy buffet.

In terms of purchase advice, I’d file it under “AAA to satisfy a craving, not a must-have main course”: if you’re already aesthetically exhausted by the recent wave of open-world games, don’t force it—wait for later patches, optimizations, and discounts. If you enjoy grinding maps, fighting bosses, and basking in the sense of a massive production, then based on Shroud’s experience, those hundred hours should be worth the price of admission. For indie game players who really want to give it a shot, I’d suggest adjusting your expectations: treat it like occasionally going to a big chain restaurant, rather than expecting every bite to be as precisely tuned and refined as “Slay the Spire.” With that mindset, you’ll likely have a much more comfortable time.