Publisher: Pearl Abyss
Developer: Pearl Abyss
Platforms: Playstation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows, MacOS
Price: $69.99
I have a friend who ran for congress in the republican primary a couple years back in an attempt to seize control away from our MAGA representative. He ran a well-done grassroots campaign that secured him quite a few votes. But one day, amidst the deluge of candidate flyers in my mailbox, I found a flyer for that aforementioned representative. It was a teeny-tiny card with a picture of the guy standing next to 45, and it included a brief message about how he'd been endorsed. In that moment, I realized my friend wasn't going to win. That representative had effortlessly controlled the narrative for that primary cycle for the low cost of maybe 2 cents a flyer.
Gamers, it turns out, can be fully manipulated with the use of one word, and it's not the one you're probably thinking of. No. The word is "difficulty."
Before I even picked up this game, an article crossed my path with the headline "IGN gives Crimson Desert a 6/10 because its puzzles are 'too difficult.'"
In that moment, I had the same feeling I felt when I got that flyer in the mail. This clickbait headline was a bit of narrative control executed with surgical precision. Suddenly, I noticed quite a bit more positive buzz surrounding this game than I did before. The controls were suddenly no longer "terribly designed," and you were a casual for thinking that way.
I'm making this phenomenon sound more widespread than it is, but make no mistake: a lot of the positivity you'll see exists in bad faith. Keep that in mind as you peruse the web.
Crimson Desert has perhaps the single easiest recommendation criteria in history. Is size the only thing that matters to you? Then this will be the only game you need for all of 2026. I know that sounded pretty dismissive, but it's directed towards Crimson Desert and not you, dear reader.
To belabor my point, Crimson Desert is as wide as an ocean...and as deep as an ocean too, oddly enough. But the ocean in question is the Galveston side of the Gulf of Mexico. It's filled with trash, murky beyond recognition, and just plain ugly.
It's huge, yes. But as every woman I've been with and subsequently disappointed is quick to remind me, it isn't about how massive something is. It's about how you use it. And with how poorly Crimson Desert controls...
However, literally nobody actually dies in this attack. So, the story is ultimately about Kliff going around and getting the gang back together to get some sweet revenge...
Or it would be about getting some sweet revenge if it weren't actually about screwing around doing not even one exciting thing.
You'll go to an insane asylum and wander aimlessly for a while until you reach a cutscene. You'll fight some guys. You'll enter the world's least exciting arena segment. You'll go find a guy with a pot on his head and repair something like 4 forges in order to create a special pot that will allow you to...craft things. You'll also take part in a terrible archery contest, which is ultimately where I decided enough was enough. Everything I've mentioned takes place in the exact same blip-sized spot on the map, by the by. From what I understand, the story does expand in scope and see the characters venture to other places in this huge world later on...but when I ultimately quit, I was around 20 hours in and no such variety had shown its face.
To be clear, I also wasn't just rushing through the story. There were several nights where I would do what the fanboys suggested and go out to explore. But you can't really make the most out of the world without going through those terrible story segments, so no...you can't "just go out and explore" with anything resembling efficiency.
Gameplay is broken up into approximately twenty million bajillion different parts. I'll be focusing on just three: combat, puzzles and exploration.
Combat isn't very good, but it's the best aspect of this game without question. I also can barely bring myself to write about it because of how overwhelming it is, so I'll keep it brief.
Imagine the free-flow combat system you'd find in the Arkham series, but without anything resembling a proper tutorial. I found myself flying into intense fits of rage because it would sometimes take upwards of FIFTEEN button presses for Kliff to attack. It was only when I went online looking for answers (and found countless other people also frustrated by this alongside the typical 'git gud' cringelords) that I learned that you're supposed to hold the attack button.
That, right there, is perhaps the biggest problem you'll find in Crimson Desert: crucial things simply aren't explained, and the only way to figure these things out is to randomly press buttons (or goddamned hold them, as the case may be) or rub yourself on every texture you can find looking for a prompt.
Before I move on from combat, I will say that there are times where it clicks. The first time I accidentally grabbed a guy's face and slammed him into the ground, I'll admit that I said "hell yeah!" to myself. Performing a finisher on an enemy also has this area of effect fear thing where everyone in the vicinity will either get knocked back or fall to their knees before they start fighting again. Unfortunately, you automatically perform finishers on every enemy you kill, so it does get old...but it takes a while to do so.
So, that's combat. Kind of a mixed bag. But puzzles never once got good in my whole 20 hours.
Here are some of my notes, verbatim:
"Find where the core locks into place
What's a core?
Did it with guesswork.
Move the floating thing onto the deactivated lanturn
What's a lanturn?
Did it with guesswork.
Hang on to the middle of the powered device.
It wasn't the glowing, now-powered cube that opened up in the center of the area in the cutscene.
It was the not at all powered-looking bit of wall dressing on the floor above me and off to the side.
Well, at least there's no 'follow the tracks'!
Update: there was a 'follow the tracks'"
Did any of that make no sense to you because you didn't have the relevant context about what I was doing when I took those notes?
Good. You know how it feels to play Crimson Desert now.
Finally, there's exploration. Like combat, it's a bit of a mixed bag.
On one hand, you have an improved version of Breath of the Wild's climbing system (meaning "without the stupid rain physics"). In a game where the whole appeal is seeing a mountain in the distance and ultimately being able to climb it, having the actual ability to climb it and not have to find a way around is a godsend.
You have a paltry amount of stamina at the start, which isn't great...but every time I needed to climb something (without a single exception), there were always outcroppings spaced out so that I never ran out of that stamina. That's a level of design care that truly is nothing to sneeze at, and despite how fervently I'm not recommending Crimson Desert, I seriously applaud the developers for this.
On the other hand, there's a significantly worse version of Breath of the Wild's paraglider. The whole appeal of a paraglider is that you get to jump from a high place and glide further and faster than you could ever hope to run. In Crimson Desert's version, however, your paltry stamina gauge can only sustain maybe a couple steps worth of distance before you run out and start plummeting to the earth. So there's literally no point to it except to survive fall damage as you slowly, slowly drift down, since that costs no stamina.
I can hear the same folks who might say "lol just explore" starting to say "lol just upgrade your stamina."
Ok...
How is a new player going to know how to do that? How are they going to learn what currency is used to level up? How are they going to learn how to get that currency? I figured it out, but we're back at the crux of the issue, here. Crimson Desert doesn't want you to like it.
[Oh, and given that this is the most generic open world I've seen in years, it's not like there's anything impressive to find through this exploration anyway.]
Are bugs to be expected from a project as gigantic as this? Naturally. But this game didn't need to have a whole sweeping system, a whole Red Dead Redemption 2 camp mechanic, Tears of the Kingdom sky islands, or half of the other stuff-for-stuff's-sake stuff it has. Crimson Desert dug its own grave here, and it needs to accept the consequences.
I've heard that there have been multiple patches since I put this game down that address some of these problems...but it doesn't matter. They shouldn't have been there in the first place. Any questions?
Crimson Desert is a game that some have mistakenly called "ambitious," but I don't agree with that. By the developers' own admission, this is a game that shamefully lifts every mechanic it has from other, better games. In most cases, it does these things notably worse. "Ambition" isn't what has hamstrung this game for so many people. "Hubris" is. Again, by the developers' own admission.
So, no. I don't recommend Crimson Desert. That is, unless the only thing that matters to you in a game is the size of its world. If that's you, I guess I actually recommend it fully. You'll be having a blast for the rest of 2026 and possibly onward. But if you need things like at least passively good design, a story, or a world with a soul, please find another use for your $70. I put off buying this game for such a long time because I had a feeling it might not be for me, but I stupidly decided to give it a shot anyway. I wish I hadn't.
Let us review:
Terrible story and characters - 1.0
Mediocre combat - 0.5
Borderline impossible to figure out puzzles - 1.0
Boring, soulless, generic open world - 1.0
Technical flaws - 1.0
Horrid controls - 1.0
The final score for Crimson Desert is...
4.5/10 - Slightly Below Average
Publisher: Leafy Games
Developer: Leafy Games
Platforms: Microsoft Windows (via Steam and itch.io)
Price: $2.99
How about we have a look at something actually worth its asking price, yeah?
Idols of Ash has a simple premise: you're trying to reach the bottom of a gigantic pit full of ancient ruins for some undisclosed spiritualistic reason. But this isn't a solitary pilgrimage, strictly speaking. Once you're too far down to easily escape, you find you have a pursuer: a horrifying giant centipede that wants to eat you in the horrifying ways centipedes like to eat things.
Gameplay is equally simple: you throw your hook at surfaces and either climb up or down them, with the ultimate goal being to descend one way or the other. But you also have to do this swiftly, lest the centipede catch up to you.
A few things to note here: this isn't a grappling hook. It's a climbing hook. You aren't aiming at the face of a beam, you're aiming above it in the hopes of getting the hook stuck on the other side. This makes things slower than you might expect, since you're just going to plummet to your death if you don't specifically hear the hook get stuck. You're going to plummet to your death for this exact reason, and you're going to do it often.
However, missing your target isn't necessarily a death sentence. If you're falling near another surface, you can throw both a Hail Mary and your hook to try and catch yourself in the nick of time. It's largely luck-based, and if you succeed you typically take a massive amount of health damage, but you can take a mistake and turn it into something worthwhile if you're lucky enough.
If you aren't so lucky, there are checkpoints at various spots as you descend, but they're few and far between. They also don't replenish your health (only specific items in the world do that). So if you sustain a lot of damage from one of those clutch falls, you have a choice to make. Do you interact with the checkpoint and ultimately remove your ability to pull off a lucky fall like that in the future? Or do you keep going and risk losing even more progress in order to have a fresher start upon death?
All of these things make for one intriguing gameplay loop full of deceptively simple strategizing and shocking successes you wouldn't have thought you'd be able to pull off.
However...
The only other complaint I have is about your hundred-legged pursuer. I understand why it exists, but I think Idols of Ash would be much better without it. The burst of adrenaline you'll likely feel when you hear the horrifying sound of the centipede's mandibles behind you is definitely conducive to a tense experience. But I think it clashes a bit too hard with the slower, more deliberate pace of the climbing.
If this were a climbing game with a pace more like that of Lorn's Lure, the centipede could work. But the second you start being able to hear it, you basically have no choice but to scramble and act irresponsibly since it handily outspeeds you. It isn't a huge problem, but I can't say I ever had any positive thoughts about what the centipede brings to the tension.
From a technical standpoint, Idols of Ash is flawless. I never noticed a single thing wrong. No further notes on that.
Idols of Ash only recently made the jump from itch.io to Steam, so I wouldn't blame you if you haven't heard of it yet. But Leafy Games has crafted a stunningly competent experience that manages to leave plenty of room for creative expression in spite of only having one direction you're aiming for. If you've got some change rolling around in your couch and you feel like supporting a clearly talented indie developer, maybe give this one a shot!
Let us review:
Slight frustration with checkpoints and centipede - 1.0
The final score for Idols of Ash is...
9.0/10 - Fantastic
Publisher: Hayes Geldmacher
Developer: Hayes Geldmacher
Platforms: Microsoft Windows (via Steam and itch.io)
Price: $2.99
Ritual Static is a horror game with a clear inspiration that will never cease to draw me in: Skinamarink. I fear that I'll be chasing the high of experiencing that film for the first time until I shed this mortal coil, but Ritual Static gets pretty darn close.
The premise is this: you're a young man in his childhood home right before a big move, and your mother has tasked you with taking pictures of various items that will be put up for sale. The game takes place over the course of three days and three nights, with each day giving you a new batch of pictures to take.
The daytime isn't much more complicated than that. But at night, our camera-wielding hero finds himself having nightmares that take him back to his childhood and the vaguely horrific things that happened to him, all in a twisted liminal version of the house.
Like in the film that inspired it, Ritual Static leaves a lot unspoken...but just enough is clear to make it horrifying. There's a kind of power present in implications that you can't get from anything else, and the implications here are enough to possibly make you sick to your stomach. I know I definitely felt that way after chewing on some of the details in the world.
I originally had a little section here going into detail as a means of giving you a content warning before you go into Ritual Static, but it actually felt a little irresponsible to give those kinds of details. So instead, I'll just say "A Serbian Film but worse in some ways" and move on.
In short, it's a walking simulator...but god if it isn't the scariest walking simulator I've ever played.
How scary?
Well, when I play games that pose a serious threat of bigtime scaring me, I have a habit: I'll hold my breath before I round a corner so that I can't yelp or do my usual blaspheming too loudly.
There are a lot of turns to make and corners to round here, all in that signature Skinamarink style. So I was actually starting to feel a little lightheaded from the constant breath holding. Between that and the equally signature Skinamarink discomfort, I needed to take a couple breaks before the credits rolled on this 2-hour max experience. All exceptional praise for a horror game!
I have two small complaints about Ritual Static, though.
The first is that the tutorializing is a little flimsy. You can accidentally skip over a piece or two of information, which I did...or it might be that certain messages can just not appear sometimes, not sure. As a result, I was certain that I was softlocked at a certain point until I looked up a playthrough and happened to finally see the relevant tutorial.
Lastly, there's a section towards the end that's simply too dark, and upping the brightness doesn't really help. Skinamarink's diegetic lighting allowed juxtaposition with the darkness to do a lot of heavy lifting, but in this particular section, there isn't much in the way of any kind of lighting. So it's just dark, and as a result it isn't very scary. Just a bit irritating.
Those are the only problems. Technically speaking, there isn't anything else to say. If you're like me and you're always down for a liminal space horror experience, Ritual Static is going to give you one hell of a fix.
Let us review:
Slight tutorial problems and too much darkness at times - 0.5
The final score for Ritual Static is...
9.5/10 - Near Masterpiece
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