Crimson Desert offers no support for Intel GPUs — developer Pearl Abyss says 'please refer to the refund policy'

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Gamers on Intel graphics left in the lurch as the developer apparently has no plans to fix its game on the biggest GPU vendor.

A screenshot from the game Crimson Desert, showing intense melee combat gameplay.
(Image credit: Pearl Abyss)
Recent updates

Update 3/20/26 at 7:23pm ET:

Intel has shared a statement with Tom's Hardware and other outlets, saying it has reached out to Pearl Abyss "many times" concerning Arc graphics support.

If you haven't been paying attention to gaming news, folks have been hyping new single-player action RPG Crimson Desert pretty hard lately. To be fair, it's a great game, with deep action combat, a sprawling open world to explore, and killer current-generation graphics. If you're keen to play the game but you have an Intel Arc GPU, however, bad news—you're out of luck.

A screenshot of the Crimson Desert startup screen displaying an error message.

This is the error that Crimson Desert pops up when you attempt to play on an Intel Arc B580, even with the latest driver. (Image credit: Future)

It's not completely clear if this is an error message arising from a technical problem or if it's a hard-coded check and lockout. We wouldn't normally even consider the latter circumstance, but it's a possibility in this case, as Pearl Abyss has an entry in its FAQ for the game that explicitly says the title doesn't currently support Intel Arc graphics products.

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A screenshot of the Crimson Desert FAQ.

From the Crimson Desert FAQ. (Image credit: Future)

Recommending that users return the game if they have specific hardware is surprising, especially considering that Intel actually ships the largest number of graphics processors for PCs. While it's true that Intel Arc discrete cards barely manage a percentage point of market share, there are a whole lot of systems out there with Intel CPUs and no discrete GPUs. All Intel CPUs from Meteor Lake onwards use some variation of an Arc graphics architecture, and Intel actually has the fastest integrated GPU right now with its Core Ultra 300H series processors, but users hoping to play Crimson Desert on integrated Intel graphics are also left out in the cold.

So what to do? Well, since it's pretty unlikely you have an Arc GPU, you're probably in the clear. I say "probably" because some users with high-end GeForce RTX cards have actually been getting the same error pop-up, as shown in the example below:

A screenshot of the Steam discussions page for Crimson Desert, showing a user with a GeForce RTX card getting the same error as Arc users.

On the Steam discussion boards, there are many posts of users with Radeon RX and GeForce RTX graphics cards getting the same error as Arc gamers. (Image credit: Future)

Some folks have theorized that the issue may be a lack of DirectX 12 Work Graphs support on Intel Arc GPUs. However, AMD doesn't support Work Graphs on its RDNA 2-based graphics hardware (Radeon RX 6000 series), and yet those cards can run the game just fine, so it's clearly not that.

Comment from r/pcmasterrace

Whatever the issue is, we suspect Intel can resolve it in a driver update. Intel has previously updated its Arc drivers to fix poor performance and graphical errors in Pearl Abyss' earlier game, Black Desert Online, which was based on an older version of the BlackSpace engine that underpins Crimson Desert. PA's admission the game doesn't support Arc GPUs "currently" implies it may do so in the future. However, the fact that it is encouraging users to seek refunds suggests that it may take some time to add support, if it arrives at all.

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Zak Killian
Zak Killian
Contributor

Zak is a freelance contributor to Tom's Hardware with decades of PC benchmarking experience who has also written for HotHardware and The Tech Report. A modern-day Renaissance man, he may not be an expert on anything, but he knows just a little about nearly everything.

15 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Notton
    That's so... weird
    They compiled a version for macOS, and yet the PC version doesn't work on Intel GPUs is... a choice
    Reply
  • PSUpower
    Is this supposed to be an AAA title? What a disgrace!
    Reply
  • thestryker
    This is certainly a choice and since Pascal and RDNA are supported it shouldn't be a featureset problem of any sort. Not that I was particularly interested in this game, but arbitrarily cutting off Intel graphics is a good enough reason to not buy it ever barring them reversing course.
    Reply
  • 80251
    If a game is written to the DX11 or DX12 API doesn't that imply it should work with all GPUs that support those APIs?
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    80251 said:
    If a game is written to the DX11 or DX12 API doesn't that imply it should work with all GPUs that support those APIs?
    It should, but many games have a list of GPUs they support and if you don't have any of them they just won't run.
    If this is the case here then someone will path this to play on intel GPUs.
    (Just like they patched dlss or whatever to work on intel/amd )
    Reply
  • thestryker
    Well I guess this clears up who's to blame:
    "We’re aware that Crimson Desert currently doesn’t launch on systems with Intel GPUs and we’re hugely disappointed that players using Intel graphics hardware can’t jump into the world of Pywel at launch.

    Getting games running smoothly is always a partnership between developers and hardware makers. Over the past several years, we’ve reached out to Pearl Abyss many times to help test, validate, and optimize support for Intel graphics, providing early hardware, drivers, and engineering resources across multiple generations, including Alchemist, Battlemage, Meteor Lake, and Lunar Lake.
    Our teams are deeply committed to helping all studios deliver the best experience possible, providing open tools, documentation, and direct engineering support to make sure their games run well for everyone, including the tens of millions of players using Intel GPUs. We remain ready to assist Pearl Abyss however we can.
    For details on the choice not to enable Intel support at launch, please reach out directly to Pearl Abyss."

    Intel Rep to Wccftech

    https://wccftech.com/crimson-desert-doesnt-run-on-intel-arc-confirms-pearl-abyss/
    Reply
  • bigdragon
    Crimson Desert looks amazing. I'll pick it up once I get done with my current queue. I've got too many other awesome games to play first, and not enough time away from work to get through them all rapidly.

    However, I disagree with cutting off support for all Intel GPUs. The developers should announce and add support for the Arc product line. We need more competition in the GPU space, and arbitrarily denying access to Intel customers is not good for that competition. I could understand saying no to the integrated/HD/UHD graphics options. Arc should be treated with the same respect as Radeon and Geforce.
    Reply
  • JayGau
    I was interested in this game until I read the first reviews yesterday. Turns out it's basically a single-player version of their MMO, so a lot of grinding, an almost inexistant storyline and quests that feel like you check items on a list of chores. Maybe if it goes down to 20$ in a couple of years I will try it, but until then I'll pass.
    Reply
  • nrdwka
    looks like the same behavior as some games refused to lunch if HDD installation was detected
    Reply
  • Gururu
    I was really looking forward to the game and interested in hearing their side too. This is almost too blatant to be true. A real finger to Intel, and by default Arc owners.
    Reply