Crimson Desert blocks Intel ARC GPUs from playing, studio asks owners to refund

Both integrated and discrete Intel ARC GPUs currently cannot run Crimson Desert, the high-profile open-world adventure from Pearl Abyss

Over five years after its announcement, the open-world adventure game Crimson Desert landed earlier this week from Pearl Abyss, the Korean studio known for creating the Black Desert Online MMORPG. The highly ambitious title received mostly positive reception from critics and players. However, one group of players on PC isn't having a good time, as they can't seem to even run the game.

It has come to light that Crimson Desert does not run on Intel ARC graphics. Both integrated and discrete GPUs are affected. This isn't a crashing issue either, with the game simply throwing an error and blocking players when attempting to run on Intel graphics-powered machines. The error message says, "The graphics device is currently not supported." The wording does give some hope about the support coming later.

Like many other games releasing nowadays, Pearl Abyss did not mention Intel ARC graphics cards when detailing Crimson Desert's minimum and recommended specifications. Those only showed AMD and Nvidia GPUs like the RX 5500 and RTX 2080.

Usually, despite being missing from requirements, games usually run on ARC GPUs just fine, unlike here. There wasn't any announcement or disclaimer regarding the game not supporting ARC cards, either.

As reports of the launch error circulated, a Frequently Asked Questions section Pearl Abyss has published on its website has come into attention, which asks affected players to refund the game:

Does Crimson Desert support Intel Arc?

No, Crimson Desert currently does not support Intel Arc graphics cards. If you purchased the game expecting Intel Arc support, please refer to the refund policy of the platform where the game was purchased for available options. We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

Users on Reddit who discovered the statement also say that this note regarding the support issue wasn't displayed until the game's launch.

Pearl Abyss asking players to refund the game doesn't give much confidence in a quick resolution for Intel ARC owners.