Crimson Desert will not boot on Intel Arc graphics cards and users are being encouraged to refund the game

Usually, when your graphics card doesn't appear in the system specs for a game, that doesn't necessarily mean it can't run it. When no Intel GPU appeared in the Crimson Desert system requirements, one might pick up the game anyway and just risk an unoptimised gaming experience. If you're among the unlucky few with an Intel card who chose to do just that this time around, you should ask for a refund.

In the Crimson Desert frequently asked questions page, it reveals that the game actively does not support Intel Arc graphics cards, and players are in fact encouraged to "please refer to the refund policy of the platform where the game was purchased."

In this case, it's not just that it lacks official support. It doesn't even run on machines with Intel GPUs. We've tried it and we were greeted by a pop-up telling us as much.

That FAQ page, prior to launch, did not have the Intel Arc disclosure. The current page does "Apologise for any inconvenience caused", but it not being mentioned prior to launch has caught Crimson Desert some flak on Reddit.

One post with close to 7,000 upvotes as of the time of writing says it "might be the first time I've seen a dev deliberately block a GPU brand" and another says it "seems like a step back into times of 8 and 16-bit home computers, where games were designed to run only on one specific machine. But without the advantage of being extremely optimised for this specific hardware."

The pop-up our Dave ran into, trying to boot the game with an Intel Arc GPU

Steam's refund policy is pretty reliable for this kind of thing, giving money back with a good reason if you've played for under two hours. The game on Epic Games Store is under the 'self-refundable' category, so it can also be refunded within two weeks, and with less than two hours of play time. If an Intel graphics card owner buys the game on launch, but doesn't get around to it for a while, they might struggle to get that refund, though.

It's particularly strange for Pearl Abyss to recommend buyers seek refunds, as that signals it's unlikely it will ever optimise the game for Intel users. The decision to entirely block the game leaves Intel users with little recourse now or in the future.

We don't yet know why this decision was made, but it could have something to do with Intel's relatively small share of the graphics card market or the fact that Pearl Abyss might not want that small market to have a subpar gaming experience. Steam's Hardware Survey isn't a totally accurate science, but it is a solid snapshot of users, and this month, Intel Arc Graphics took a 0.16% market share.

But then, if we're talking about a small market share, it seems stranger that Crimson Desert has been optimised to work on both Mac and the ROG Xbox Ally. Though the latter device is having some problems, as ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox PC are both struggling to launch the game properly. It's a bit of a weird launch, on the technical side, for a game with very reasonable system requirements.

Over on the Pearly Abyss discord, a moderator was asked if there are any plans to support Intel Arc GPUs, and a mod said: "At the moment, we do not support Intel Arc".

We have reached out to both Intel and Pearl Abyss about this story.

If you have an Intel graphics card and want to play the game on your PC, it is on GeForce Now, which is a decent workaround, but not a great fix if you don't have the connection for it, or want to pay out for another service when you already have a gaming PC.