Review Crimson Desert on Xbox Series X Improved by Update – But What's Up With Series S?

Crimson Desert looks impressive on PS5 Pro and holds up reasonably well on PS5 too after some post-launch patches, but how do the Xbox Series X and Series S fare? In truth, there's a stark divide between the two Microsoft consoles. The Series X version largely mirrors the base PlayStation 5 code, for better and for worse, while the Series S offers a more constrained - but still ultimately viable - experience.

Let's cover Series X first, as it's a fairly straightforward scenario, with the console using exactly the same graphical settings as the PS5 across three modes. The 30fps quality mode runs at 1440p and largely uses high settings, including better model quality, bloom, lens flares and RT. The 40fps balanced mode, meanwhile, runs at 1280p, while the 60fps performance mode runs at a native 1080p. Unfortunately, this latter mode is visibly blurry, with distant details and text suffering.

To address image quality concerns on that performance mode, the April 4th patch adds a fixed 4K output option that uses FSR 3 upscaling, drastically improving sharpness and text clarity. Unfortunately, this comes at a cost to performance, with frame-rates in the 45 to 55fps region and occasional drops into the low 40s in battle. In general it's a nice option to have in the locker, but it's not a perfect workaround for those targeting the full 60.

When testing raw frame-rates with the fixed 4K output option disabled, Series X generally maintains around a 3fps lead over the base PS5 in performance mode, with the PS5 Pro some distance ahead. As you'd expect, areas packed with NPCs offer a stern CPU challenge on Series X just as they do on other platforms, with Bug Hill and major cities causing performance drops into the 30s or worse. That means the game dips out of the VRR window, leading to screen tearing.

It's a similar scenario for balanced mode, where the Series X again slightly outperforms PS5 but still regularly drops below the 40fps target in combat or bustling cities. The 30fps quality mode is the most stable but can still become overstretched while swimming, battling or exploring dense areas.

While the outlook on Series X isn't perfect, it's still much rosier than it is on Series S. The 4TF Microsoft console offers two modes, a 30fps quality mode and a performance mode capped at 40fps for 120Hz displays. To achieve these targets, the developers completely removed ray tracing and dropped every single setting, including textures, shadows and model quality, all the way down to the equivalent of PC's low settings.

The quality mode at least outputs a 1080p image, but foliage pop-in, lacklustre shadow filtering and interior lighting that bleeds through geometry are all immediately noticeable issues beyond the overall lack of fidelity. Performance-wise, the game is mostly capable of holding its target frame-rate outdoors, but cities and large enemy encounters can dip the proceedings into the mid-20s.

The Series S performance mode is even more compromised, dropping the base resolution to a native 720p without the aid of any upscaling tech beyond temporal anti-aliasing (TAA). That results in a hugely pixelated image most reminiscent of a Switch port. The upside is that its 40fps target is at least maintained outside of the most CPU-bound areas, but the extreme sacrifice to visual fidelity makes it a poor proposition.

While the Series S is the obvious outlier when it comes to visual quality, all console versions suffer from high input latency, with the Series S being the most egregious offender. Our tests show a glacial 179ms response time in the 30fps quality mode, creating a sluggish experience for camera movement and menu navigation alike. The Series X is barely better, at 163ms in quality mode and 82ms on performance, while the base PS5 is slightly faster across the board.

Ultimately, while the Series X release is reasonably playable as of the latest patches, it would still benefit from further optimisation to reduce input latency, prevent tearing and shore up performance in CPU-heavy areas. The drastically stripped-down Series S version, on the other hand, cannot be readily recommended as a home console experience. In fact, it may yet be outperformed by the upcoming Switch 2 version, which should at least benefit from DLSS upscaling, despite being a less powerful machine overall.