Crimson Desert now boots on Intel Arc GPUs with full optimization on the way

The gaming community has done it again. Pearl Abyss, the studio behind chart-topping title Crimson Desert, has changed course and announced that support for Intel Arc GPUs is on the way. The announcement comes right after Pearl Abyss officially confirmed that the game does not support Intel Arc GPUs at all, and explicitly suggested that Arc owners seek refunds.

The studio has now updated its stance following community backlash and says it is working on compatibility and optimization support for Intel Arc GPU systems.

We are currently working on compatibility and optimization support so that Crimson Desert can also be enjoyed on Intel Arc GPU systems. We are preparing to provide a smooth and stable gameplay experience, and we ask for your patience until the support update becomes available.

Following the announcement, some players have managed to boot Crimson Desert on Arc B850 hardware, but report broken rendering, white or blue screens, and general instability shortly after. This means the game currently only boots and may work for some time, but performance drops and stability issues will likely occur until full optimization arrives.

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Interestingly, gamers aren't the only ones behind this turnaround. Intel also recently stated to Wccftech that it had offered years of help for Crimson Desert, including testing, validation, optimization support, and engineering resources across Alchemist, Battlemage, Meteor Lake, and Lunar Lake. However, Pearl Abyss still shipped without Arc support. This made the situation significantly worse, and with the backlash piling on, it was now or never.

Pearl Abyss hasn't dug itself out of the hole just yet. The turnaround has taken 3 to 4 days, which means there's a fair chance a good number of affected gamers have already gone ahead with a refund, a path the studio pointed them toward themselves. Doing a complete 180 and adding support now is a welcome move, but it's one that should have been the plan from the start.

Whether those gamers will return to the title or the studio will extend any form of compensation to those affected remains to be seen. For those who held on, Pearl Abyss has not yet disclosed a release date for the patch.