Last year, over 20,000 games were released on Steam. Over 99% of them I never played. But for the overwhelming majority of those unplayed games, I didn't play them because I am either not aware they even exist, or I only saw the game in passing and instantly decided that this wasn't a game for me. There are quite a lot of games out there that are simply trash. Others might be good for their audience, but that audience isn't me, e.g. I'm not playing visual novel games.

The games I do end up playing, I usually inform myself about before hitting that purchase button. I don't spontaneously spend 60 to 80 bucks on a game just based on the cover. And it's not just the money; the whole process of installing a game and learning how to play it is an effort I want to only undertake if there is a good chance that I will actually like the game. And so I read reviews, watch the game played on YouTube or Twitch, or check out discussions on forums or Reddit. I try to find out what other people liked or didn't like about that particular game, and then apply my personal filter, because something some reviewer hated might actually not bother me at all or vice versa. That isn't a 100% surefire process, I did end up playing games that ultimately I don't like. But it helps taking a decision.

Crimson Desert is a game that fell into the middle ground between the two extremes. As a highly anticipated and talked about game (which then sold 2 million copies on release), it certainly was a game I was aware of. And as a kind-of-single-player-MMO / RPG / crafting base builder game it certainly falls into the genre of games I often like. And so I informed myself about the game, watched the videos, and applied my filters. And then I decided not to play it, because it fell through those filters. A game where even the people who like souls-like games complain about the tedious boss fights raises a big red flag for me. The general complaints about the control scheme and lack of quality of life features didn't help either.

The main reason I ended up blogging about Crimson Desert was not because I think my personal opinion of the game is particularly valid, not having played it. But because a recurring theme of many of those reviews was they had expected a game more like The Witcher 3, with a strong story, and came away disappointed by the lack of story and uninteresting main character, but were impressed by the huge open world. My post was more about how a strong story with interesting characters isn't wholly compatible with a huge open world and sandbox style gameplay. But sometimes people ask me whether I would play a particular game, and so I threw in my comments of why I probably won't be playing Crimson Desert.