In March, poor performance of Crimson Desert on PS5 and PS5 Pro was reported. Back then, players complained about numerous bugs and a virtually unplayable frame rate. It took Pearl Abyss several months to fix the situation. With the release of the Charting the Unknown expansion, history is repeating itself.
Journalists did not receive the DLC in advance, so there are almost no reviews online. The publisher likely understood that the add-on was not well enough prepared for release and decided not to send out keys to editorial offices.
Owners of the standard PS5 report that during ship travel and underwater exploration, the game struggles to maintain 30 FPS. Performance turned out to be worse than in the base game, which itself suffered from frame drops.
A Reddit user wrote:
During ship travel and underwater exploration, the game barely hits 30 frames per second, and most of the time it is even worse. Even the base game now runs noticeably worse. I lowered the resolution to 1080p, turned off ray tracing and particle effects, and enabled performance priority, but the game continues to run terribly. I am thinking about contacting PlayStation support for a refund.
Other players call what is happening a slide show and report attempts to get compensation from Sony. PS5 Slim owners also complain that after heading out to sea, the game becomes unplayable.
There are problems on PC as well: Steam users report numerous bugs and freezes. Currently, the expansion's rating stands at 71%.
User Master wrote:
Many things simply do not work or cause the game to freeze. The DLC needed a few more months of polish.
Footage posted on Reddit shows that on PS5, the frame rate drops to around 10 FPS in some places.