If you haven't yet, follow us on X (Twitter), Mastodon, or Bluesky to know when we post new articles, and join our Reddit or Subscribe to us on YouTube to check out our content and interact with our awesome community. Thank you for supporting us!

Crimson Desert is a great game, but not one I’d ever recommend on the Steam Deck. When it was released, it was almost impossible to enjoy on it, with constant drops below 30 FPS even at the lowest quality. It has had a lot of patches, but none of those seemed to actually do much for Deck performance. So, imagine my surprise when I learned that Crimson Desert got the Steam Deck Verified badge, and it’s quite disappointing to see.

Crimson Desert

For those who don’t know, the Verified badge is part of Valve’s system for showing games that are “Great Experiences” on the Deck to show off which games should be a good time on the device. While it is accurate sometimes, there have been a recent string of games that make me question Valve’s system, and this is another one that really should not have gotten a green checkmark.

CrimsonDesertSteamDeckVerified 4

I decided to re-download and test the game again to see if any of the updates have actually improved performance, and the answer is a resounding no. On the lowest possible settings with FSR 3.1 upscaling at Ultra Performance, the game couldn’t hold a stable 30 FPS in almost any circumstance. The only time I saw it actually sticking to 30 was when falling through the air or standing in place. As soon as I started running around or getting into fights, the framerate would drop dramatically.

All this was at the lowest possible settings, which makes the game look horrible. It’s blocky, blurry, and no way to experience this great game.

CrimsonDesertSteamDeckVerified 1

I also decided to test the game using our analysis tool. This test was on the lowest possible settings with FSR 3 at Ultra Performance, and in it, I ran around and got into a fight with 8 men at once, which is quite common in the game. As we can see, the average framerate was around 29.8 FPS, while the 97th percentile stuck to 43.9 FPS. This might sound okay, but the 1% and 0.1% lows are very low at 14.9 and 11.5 FPS respectively.

CrimsonDesertFPSLowest

This is further illustrated better through our framerate distribution chart. Even though the average was 29.8 FPS, a majority of the framerates were below. And because of the rubber banding, there are a good chunk of framerates above. This means there’s a lot of stuttering with the game trying to catch up, which is horrible.

CrimsonDesertFPSDistributionLowest

This just goes to show that the system is not what it appears to be. The green checkmark doesn’t actually do a good job, indicating which games are good to play on the steam deck, since they are now just being given out. Most recently, we saw games like Disgaea Mayhem getting the Playable badge despite insane graphical artifacting, and Halo: Campaign Evolved getting the Verified badge despite massive performance issues on some levels. Now, we can add Crimson Desert to the list of examples of games that show why Valve’s system is not to be trusted.

If you enjoyed this article, check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that will help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got you covered!

Noah Kupetsky
A lover of gaming since 4, Noah has grown up with a love and passion for the industry. From there, he started to travel a lot and develop a joy for handheld and PC gaming. When the Steam Deck released, it just all clicked.
Steam Profile