Crimson Desert free trial: five hours for nothing on Xbox, but PS5 has a catch

"Free" is doing a lot of work here. Crimson Desert now has a five-hour trial on consoles, and if you buy the game afterwards, your progress comes with you. How free it really is depends entirely on which console sits under your TV.

On Xbox Series X|S it's the real thing: no Game Pass, no subscription of any kind. Pure Xbox says to search on your console for "Crimson Desert Enhanced" specifically, not any other version. On PS5 you need PlayStation Plus Premium. Essential and Extra don't count, and the PlayStation Store page for our region says so plainly. Some reports also list Deluxe, the equivalent tier in markets that have it.

So my advice splits in two. If you're on Xbox, or you already pay for Premium, there's no reason not to try it. If you're on a lower PS Plus tier, don't upgrade for this. Paying for Sony's top tier to test one game is a trial with an entry fee.

The fine print

You get one go per account. The timer can't be restarted and deleting your save won't buy you another five hours. Once time runs out, the save stays locked until you buy the game. The reports I've read don't say whether menus and idle time count, so I'd assume they do and wouldn't leave the game sitting on pause during dinner.

Only the base game is included. The Charting the Unknown expansion, out since 29 October, is a separate 24.99 euros on the PlayStation Store, and five hours wouldn't get you to it anyway. PC isn't part of the offer either. PC players got a 20-minute browser demo through Twitch in September, and that one was pitched mainly at the US, Canada and the UK.

The deadlines need a second look. Pearl Abyss's official notice says the trial runs until 7 January 2027 on Xbox and until 29 October 2027 on PlayStation. Other reports say the offer ends in early January on both platforms, and the Xbox Wire post gives both the 6th and the 7th. A full year on PS5 is a surprisingly long window and I wouldn't bet on it. On either console, treat 6 January 2027 as your last safe day unless the store page shows a later date.

Then there's the download. At launch the game weighed in at around 120 GB on both consoles, and Pearl Abyss recommended keeping 150 GB free. Those numbers predate the Enhanced update, so don't expect less. That's a lot of SSD for an evening or two of testing, especially on a 512 GB Series S. Clear the space first and let it download overnight.

What the five hours should tell you

The price is the reason to bother. Standard is 69.99 euros and Deluxe 79.99 on the PlayStation Store, and Xbox also starts at 69.99. Add the expansion and the full package comes to about 95 euros at list price. The last discount I can point to was 20 percent in late summer, which meant around 56 euros, so anyone without a hurry has a reference price to wait for.

Pearl Abyss has spent months patching launch problems, so old impressions may not hold. Use the trial to answer one question: do today's controls and combat work for you? Skip the sightseeing and get into fights early. If the game still hasn't clicked by hour four, you've just saved yourself 70 euros.

One thing to check if you buy physical. The reports only say progress transfers when you buy the full game, and none mention discs. I couldn't confirm that a disc, let alone a second-hand one, unlocks your trial save, so if the used market is your plan, count those five hours as a possible loss until someone tests it.

I do like that this trial's hours count, and that's more than most demos offer. But a trial is meant for people who haven't decided yet, and those are rarely the ones paying for Sony's most expensive tier. Xbox owners got a demo. PS5 owners got a subscriber perk.

Image: Sonson2 / CC BY-SA 4.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DualSense_Controller_Chroma_Pearl.jpg