Shroud’s take after a very long stream session

After more than 100 hours with Crimson Desert, Shroud has reached the end of the line on stream and handed down his verdict. The former Counter-Strike pro turned full-time streamer finished the game’s main questline after roughly 105 hours and, while he is not ready to crown it Game of the Year on the spot, he clearly came away impressed.

The game has been making a lot of noise lately. It has sold millions of copies, while player counts have climbed high enough to keep charts busy. On top of that, patches have been arriving at a steady pace, with a long list of changes landing in quick succession. For anyone jumping in early, including Shroud, that has meant a fairly relentless grind.

Crimson Desert is built around huge open areas, mountains of loot, a pile of boss fights, and enough side content to make a normal schedule feel like a suggestion rather than a plan. The broader question is whether all of that adds up to an all-time great open-world experience or simply a very ambitious one with a few rough edges. Shroud’s answer now sits somewhere close to the middle, with more praise than criticism.

What Shroud said after finishing the main questline

Speaking on Twitch, Shroud said he had not cleared every boss in the game by the time he wrapped up his run.

“I didn’t do all the bosses, still a few side bosses I could probably two-shot. But I did all the main bosses,” he said.

He also made it clear that his time with the game was not ending because he had run out of patience. It was just time to close the book on the stream version of the playthrough.

“I might play this game in my own time, but that’s it [on stream]. A solid 100 hours. That was really fun, I enjoyed that a lot.”

That lines up fairly neatly with the current critical picture. Crimson Desert currently holds a Metacritic score of 77 based on 102 critic reviews, and Shroud’s own estimate lands in the same neighborhood.

“I still think the game’s rating… 78-82, in that range.

“I think if they made little fixes to the game here and there, it could be like 85, but it’s a good game. Real good game. A dense one for sure.”

So no, this is not the kind of endorsement that has Shroud demanding award-season recognition the way he did with Black Myth: Wukong. But it is still a strong thumbs-up from someone who spent a truly unreasonable amount of time in the game and, against all odds, seemed to enjoy most of it.