Pearl Abyss's Crimson Desert is getting a Mac release, with anything above macOS 15 and an M1 Chip or later being supported, which paves the way for an iOS release.
The South Korean video game developer known for their long-running and one of the most visually stunning MMOs, Black Desert Online, Pearl Abyss's latest IP, a single-player action-adventure game, Crimson Desert, is finally coming out on March 19. And, one of the release platforms includes Mac.
Crimson Desert has a massive, seamless open-world built on a custom engine that enables the developers to bring out an impressive visual fidelity that one can experience, even with normal hardware.
Peal Abyss's new game engine, 'BlackSpace,' and the Crimson Desert in particular are so promising that even Digital Foundry found it to be one of the biggest surprises they saw during CES 2026.
In fact, if you look at the game's official minimum system requirements, which are an RX 6500 XT / GTX 1060 GPU, Ryzen 5 2600X / i5-8500 CPU, and 16 GB of RAM, you may find it questionable. But apparently, Pearl Abyss is sticking with it.
On the same note, for Mac compatibility, your device must have iOS 15 or above and an M1 or better chip. A five-year-old chip able to run the game is not that far-fetched, as raw performance-wise, M1 -> M4, we see a 2x jump in CPU and around 40 to 50% jump in GPU.
Now, one can say that the above increase is also massive, but when you compare the generational gap between the M1 and M4 chips, you will think otherwise.
In any case, the fact that Crimson Desert is compatible with the M1 chip, which the A18 Pro Chip outperforms in benchmarks, creates a path for a possible iOS platform release.
Once again, it doesn't seem that far-fetched, as we have already seen games like Resident Evil Village almost hit that 60 FPS mark while running on an iPhone with the A18 Pro chip.
When it comes to gaming, both Samsung and Apple have been pushing how console games are now playable on their flagship devices via their upscaling tech and other hardware advancements.
While no game fits the size of Crimson Desert to draw a better comparison, the fact that Pearl Abyss managed to pull off a great mobile port for Black Desert further backs the possibility of Crimson Desert making its way to iOS devices.
Lastly, back during 2024's investors call, Pearl Abyss pointed out how Sony offered them an exclusivity deal that would have stopped them from releasing the game on Xbox. They also requested the PC publishing rights for the game.
Thankfully, Pearl Abyss thought that self-publishing the game would be more profitable, and thus, they didn't accept the proposal. So, there's no restriction, platform-wise, when it comes to releasing the game.
We will update this article if we have any official details on this.