Crimson Desert is "like riding a bike", says Pearl Abyss PR boss, possibly in the sense that bikes also don't run on Intel Arc GPUs

Crimson Desert’s controls aren’t a pain in the bum. You just need to get used to them. You also need to get used to not being able to run the game if you’ve got an Intel Arc graphics card. You instead need to get used to asking for a refund on this game you can’t run. These are all things Pearl Abyss have said about their huge MMO-ish RPG today, March 20th.

First, the graphics cards. “No, Crimson Desert currently does not support Intel Arc graphics cards,” reads a section of the FAQ on the game’s website which doesn’t look to have been there as of March 15th. “If you purchased the game expecting Intel Arc support, please refer to the refund policy of the platform where the game was purchased for available options. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

Intel graphics cards are rare – the company famously represents only about 1% of a market dominated by Nvidia and which AMD also exist in. Still, not making this clear prior to release, as it appears Pearl Abyss haven’t here, is a bit dodgy. Thankfully, refund rules on stores like Steam and Epic tend not to stop you getting your money back provided you’ve not played over two hours of a game and go about asking for a refund right away.

For those of us who can play it, a control scheme my colleagues have called “finicky”, “fidgety”, and an “absolute clusterfuck” awaits. It’s ok, though. “Think of it like riding a bike, it comes naturally after you learn it,” Pearl Abyss marketing director Will Powers has said in a Twitter reply about the controls. “Just takes a minute.”

To be fair, he could mean that Crimson Desert’s controls make it play like a game you’re trying to progress through on a screen attached to your helmet while simultaneously guiding a mountain bike down a narrow mountain trail full of trees that would very much ruin your day if you were to ride head-first into them.

Joshing aside, Peal Abyss have said in a separate tweet not specifically about the controls that they’ll “listen closely to the wide range of feedback shared by the community and work to make improvements quickly”, a process they’ve already kicked off with a first patch.