The March 26 Xbox preview event will focus on third-party titles, including The Expanse: Osiris reborn and RGG Studio's next big game

Illustrated by Blake's longtime collaborator Little Chmura, the first volume of Clara & the Devil releases in May.

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch
Publisher: PlayStation Studios, MLB
Developer: Sony Interactive Entertainment San Diego Studio
Release: March 17, 2026

Most sports teams ebb and flow from season to season; a championship one year is often followed by a sharp downturn a few years later. However, some teams always seem to have a higher baseline of performance than others. For much of my life, my Orioles have floundered in mediocrity, with just a few standout years throughout the last few decades. Conversely, my least favorite team, the Yankees, haven’t had a losing season since the Super NES was the hottest console on the market. Similarly, fans of MLB The Show typically know that, even on a down year, they can expect a good game, which is exactly the case with MLB The Show 26.

As is usual, my best moments with MLB The Show 26 happened on the field. New batting and pitching options allow you to approach every at-bat how you want to from both the batter’s box and the mound; few feelings in gaming are matched by coming through for your team with a game-winning homerun or a clutch strikeout to get out of a jam. And the fluid fielding and baserunning controls have moved forward from MLB The Show 25. This is perhaps the best-playing sports game available today. Baseball is such a multifaceted sport, and I love how if something doesn’t feel right or you’re not a fan of playing certain aspects of a given game, you can easily tweak the feel or automation of those elements.

The excellent gameplay of MLB The Show 26 hits that baseline of quality; regardless of any changes made for better or worse, a mode can be buoyed by how good it feels to simply play through a game of baseball. Whether you want to enjoy a one-off exhibition game with live rosters or chart your own destiny with a more long-term mode, MLB The Show 26 offers a compelling suite of options. 

I’ve always been drawn to the long-form modes since their proliferation in sports games. By expanding beyond just playing a single game, modern sports games allow you to forge your own emergent storylines and provide your own context amid the broader backdrop of history. MLB The Show has traditionally provided the best contextualization through its March to October mode, which plugged you into high-impact situations not only to determine how your team’s momentum would swing, but also help sow narrative seeds for the season. Sadly, March to October is no more in this year’s game, leaving Franchise feeling a bit more lifeless. 

 

Instead, Franchise now offers highly customizable options for when you want to drop into a simulation. I love having full control over which scenarios I want to play through, and how early or late in the game it needs to be before it stops the simulation. However, the new interface is clunkier than that of March to October, and the whole mode feels much more sterile than its predecessor, even with the new trading hub. I enjoyed tracking league rumors before wheeling and dealing to try and bring my team the relief pitcher it desperately needed, but when that was over, I still missed the old format.

Road to the Show emerged as my favorite MLB The Show mode long ago, and that doesn’t change with this entry. The thrill of starting with a high school player and bringing them up through the minors and into the big leagues in an RPG-inspired mode never ceases to instill in me that “just one more game” feeling well into the night hours. And because you can level up your player by boosting their attributes, leveling up their situational perks, or using special equipment, you have a ton of ways to improve your player’s performance. 

Much like last year, I was excited for the integration of the college path should you choose to wait longer to go pro, and also much like last year, I was disappointed. Though the college path is more robust than last year’s paltry offerings, I’m frustrated that you still skip years of your college career. I understand the desire to rush into the pro side of things, but if I choose to go to college, I want it to feel like a meaningful decision.

Outside of those multi-season modes, Diamond Dynasty is the other long-form offering, providing one of the better card-collection modes in any sports game. At a time when opening real packs of cards is as big a social-media phenomenon as ever, opening digital ones capitalizes on that excitement. Thanks to an impressive offering of sub-modes and an easy-to-use marketplace, I was able to build up my team to a satisfactory level without much frustration. However, there is frustration in how much great content is locked behind this microtransaction-driven mode. 

If you want to play World Baseball Classic content, that is inexplicably housed in Diamond Dynasty. If you want to build a team of classic players, you can also primarily do that in Diamond Dynasty. NBA 2K allows you to play Franchise mode in entirely different eras, making the fact that other sports series lock classic players and teams behind card-collection modes unacceptable. And the fact that we just came off one of the most exciting and talked-about World Baseball Classic tournaments of all time, and you can’t just choose to play as those national teams – particularly when the WBC is so heavily featured in the marketing – is a monumental misstep.

The awesome Storylines mode rounds out the main offerings of MLB The Show 26, returning for its fourth season to highlight the underserved history of the Negro Leagues. Though this year’s players aren’t as iconic as the previous years, I somehow like that even more, as I was already familiar with the stories of players like Satchel Paige and Jackie Robinson, but far less so with Mule Suttles or Peanut Johnson. Learning about these players through short, objective-based gameplay chunks and informational videos is something I look forward to year after year.

The mode is so well done that I hope it continues to expand, offering these kinds of mini documentaries for other corners of baseball history. I’d love to hear a baseball historian talk about someone like Roberto Clemente as you play the greatest moments of his abbreviated career, or even themed Storylines like the homerun chase of ’98 or the historic Red Sox ALCS comeback of 2004. You can experience some historical content through the Moments mode, but it remains rigid and lacking in true context, creating a less memorable mode than Storylines.

Much like a consistently winning sports team, MLB The Show 26 didn’t change things too dramatically, but this entry almost feels like a soft-rebuilding year; so while many of these changes may elevate the overall package in future games, they aren’t quite there yet. But much like those perennial contenders, even when it’s not the best the franchise has looked, MLB The Show 26 is once again lined up for another winning season.

Score: 7.75

About Game Informer's review system

Update: Early this morning, Pearl Abyss issued a large patch for Crimson Desert first for PC, then for PlayStation and Xbox. The patch is live for all platforms, so we decided to spend some more time with the updated console versions of the game and see if they feel batter.

We haven't had a chance to try the PlayStation version (will update this story soon with impressions), but can confirm that playing the game on Xbox Series X is already a more pleasant experience, to quote Zelda: Breath of the Wild's opaque and not-particularly-helpful patch notes.

The patch did not make a radical improvement to the visuals (I would still advise you not to look too closely at the beards), but controlling Kliff feels much smoother and more responsive. I was successfully countering much more during combat and moving through the menus is much snappier. 

Now, that isn't to say that Crimson Desert no longer feels sluggish. Moving Kliff still feels heavier than I would like, but after the patch it feels like intentional design rather than the game being uncooperative as it was before.

To read Game Informer's full review of Crimson Desert, follow the link.

[Original story published Mar 20, 2026 at 04:57 PM]

Crimson Desert was one of the most anticipated games set to launch in 2026 and after years of waiting, it's finally out on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. We gave it a 7 out of 10 in the Game Informer Crimson Desert review, and you can read that to learn more about our impressions of this RPG as a whole, but given the breadth of its vast open world, we also wanted to break down how it runs on consoles. 

If you're interested in how the game runs on PC, well, to keep it short, that's the best place to play Crimson Desert. But that's not necessarily surprising, especially for third-party games such as this. If you have a beefy PC, you can make Crimson Desert shine, and given the game's wide-ranging optimization on PC, there's a good chance the game will still look good even with an older graphics card. It's more challenging to determine how well a game runs on PC, given the wide variation in PCs from player to player, whether it's video cards, CPUs, or something else. That's the appeal of console gaming – games are (usually) good to go out of the box, per se, and don't require the tinkering that comes with playing on PC. 

As such, my colleague and Game Informer executive editor Kyle Hilliard and I are writing up this story here to tell you how the game runs on consoles. You can read my PlayStation 5 Pro impressions below, and Kyle's Xbox Series X impressions beneath that. 

Crimson Desert PlayStation 5 Pro Performance 

 

I'll describe my time with the game's performance here, but if you're here for a quick look, the gallery above features a screenshot, taken at the same time and spot in the game, in Performance mode, Balanced mode, and Quality mode. Obviously, a big aspect of these various modes is the FPS of Crimson Desert, but that doesn't come through in screenshots so these images should give you an idea of the resolution of the game in each mode. For reference, Performance mode is 1080p, Balanced is 1440p, and Quality is 4K. 

Furthermore, the Performance mode runs at 1080p/60FPS, Balanced at 1440p/40FPS, and Quality at 4K/30FPS. 

I've toyed around with each setting and I'll say this: VRR seems quite necessary to enjoy this game at its best. Regardless of the mode, but especially in Performance and Balanced, when I turned VRR off, there was a great deal of screen tearing. Even in low-population areas, the screen tearing was apparent. As such, if you have a TV with VRR (I am using an LG C-model OLED TV), you should absolutely play with it on. With that on, the screen tearing disappears, naturally. 

Performance Mode – Crimson Desert on PS5 Pro

However, screen tearing aside, I noticed a lot of environmental pop-in in the mid-range of your view at any given time on screen in Performance and Balanced mode. In Quality mode, pop-in was reduced to essentially zero. In the other two modes, though, there is a distracting amount of foliage pop-in and an even more distracting amount of terrain load-in. It's quite odd in that the mountainous rocks didn't necessarily pop in out of nowhere, but they almost morphed onto the screen. The resulting effect is a very jarring experience. I liken it to noticing something moving out of the corner of your eye – you're watching Kliff, the main character, from a third-person perspective, so your attention is on him, but in your periphery, you'll see a lot of movement in the cliffs of mountains, the leaves of forests, etc. I don't like it. 

I tried turning off 120Hz mode on my TV because I've seen some online suggest doing that to enhance your picture, but, truthfully, it changed very little for me. It might have sharpened the image up a bit (I won't pretend to know why), but my main issue with the visuals – the pop-in – remained. It's unfortunate because the 60FPS of the Performance mode, and the 40FPS of the Balanced mode, are actually quite stable in the game's opening hours. That said, I have read online that the FPS struggles to remain stable in more populated areas of the game, such as robust city villages and large-scale battles. 

Balanced Mode – Crimson Desert PS5 Pro

With all this taken into account, the best mode for now seems to be Quality mode, with a well-implemented 4K resolution and a stable 30FPS. Unfortunately, 30 FPS isn't the move for an action game like this, so ultimately this is a lose-lose situation for me. I can, of course, get over the pop-in of Performance and Balanced as I've certainly done it for games before (ahem, Pokémon Violet), but it's obviously not ideal and further proof that this game was probably optimized for PCs first before anything else. Developer Pearl Abyss has already released a patch to address some visual issues, so I suspect the game will be running better in a month than it is today. 

Quality Mode – Crimson Desert PS5 Pro

To sum up my thoughts: there's nothing particularly atrocious about the game's visual issues, but there's no obvious choice for which mode to play in. It depends on what you favor and prefer in open-world single-player RPGs: gorgeous resolution with a stable but lower framerate (Quality), or a higher framerate with blurrier resolution but lots of strange artifacting and pop-in (Performance or Balanced).

Crimson Desert Xbox Series X Performance

On Xbox Series X, much of the issues outlined above persist on Microsoft's platform. In a complimentary way, the game seems to have parity on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 Pro based on comparing Wes and I's experiences.

 

Like the PlayStation 5 Pro screenshots, the gallery above similarly showcases screenshots taken at the same spot in the game in Performance, Balanced, and Quality mode in that order.

I also saw improvements when toggling on the VRR setting, but compared to Wes' PlayStation experience, I didn't encounter much screen tearing. Environmental pop-in, however, was a distracting issue. But not nearly as distracting as protagonist Kliff's beard. On any of the settings, but especially Performance (more or less my universal setting of choice when given the option), Kliff's beard and other elements of fur and hair look fractured and low-resolution.

But far and away my biggest issue was the noticeable lag time between pressing a button and seeing that action performed on-screen. Scrolling through menus is particularly slow and the few combat encounters I engaged in became less about pulling off combos and expert blocking and more about tapping RB to swing my sword as much as possible and hoping the enemy would die before I did. It felt like I was issuing battle commands to a Pokémon more than engaging with combat myself.

Crimson Desert on Xbox Series X/S. Don't look too closely at the beard.

The game, however, does look impressive in moments where you stop and taking it in. The screenshots above were taken from a moment when an NPC encourages you to slow down and take a look at the view. And when the environment did finish popping in, I fully admit being impressed by how far in the distance I could see and how great it looked.

Like Wes wrote above, Developer Pearl Abyss is already patching both the console and PC versions of the game to address some visual issues. It's fair to hope that even in the coming weeks, the game will be running and looking better. But it seems, for the moment at least, PC, unsurprisingly, is going to be your best bet  if you have the rig to handle it.

Update: Early this morning, Pearl Abyss issued a large patch for Crimson Desert first for PC, then for PlayStation and Xbox. The patch is live for all platforms, so we decided to spend some more time with the updated console versions of the game and see if they feel batter.

We haven't had a chance to try the PlayStation version (will update this story soon with impressions), but can confirm that playing the game on Xbox Series X is already a more pleasant experience, to quote Zelda: Breath of the Wild's opaque and not-particularly-helpful patch notes.

The patch did not make a radical improvement to the visuals (I would still advise you not to look too closely at the beards), but controlling Kliff feels much smoother and more responsive. I was successfully countering much more during combat and moving through the menus is much snappier. 

Now, that isn't to say that Crimson Desert no longer feels sluggish. Moving Kliff still feels heavier than I would like, but after the patch it feels like intentional design rather than the game being uncooperative as it was before.

To read Game Informer's full review of Crimson Desert, follow the link.

[Original story published Mar 20, 2026 at 04:57 PM]

Crimson Desert was one of the most anticipated games set to launch in 2026 and after years of waiting, it's finally out on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. We gave it a 7 out of 10 in the Game Informer Crimson Desert review, and you can read that to learn more about our impressions of this RPG as a whole, but given the breadth of its vast open world, we also wanted to break down how it runs on consoles. 

If you're interested in how the game runs on PC, well, to keep it short, that's the best place to play Crimson Desert. But that's not necessarily surprising, especially for third-party games such as this. If you have a beefy PC, you can make Crimson Desert shine, and given the game's wide-ranging optimization on PC, there's a good chance the game will still look good even with an older graphics card. It's more challenging to determine how well a game runs on PC, given the wide variation in PCs from player to player, whether it's video cards, CPUs, or something else. That's the appeal of console gaming – games are (usually) good to go out of the box, per se, and don't require the tinkering that comes with playing on PC. 

As such, my colleague and Game Informer executive editor Kyle Hilliard and I are writing up this story here to tell you how the game runs on consoles. You can read my PlayStation 5 Pro impressions below, and Kyle's Xbox Series X impressions beneath that. 

Crimson Desert PlayStation 5 Pro Performance 

 

I'll describe my time with the game's performance here, but if you're here for a quick look, the gallery above features a screenshot, taken at the same time and spot in the game, in Performance mode, Balanced mode, and Quality mode. Obviously, a big aspect of these various modes is the FPS of Crimson Desert, but that doesn't come through in screenshots so these images should give you an idea of the resolution of the game in each mode. For reference, Performance mode is 1080p, Balanced is 1440p, and Quality is 4K. 

Furthermore, the Performance mode runs at 1080p/60FPS, Balanced at 1440p/40FPS, and Quality at 4K/30FPS. 

I've toyed around with each setting and I'll say this: VRR seems quite necessary to enjoy this game at its best. Regardless of the mode, but especially in Performance and Balanced, when I turned VRR off, there was a great deal of screen tearing. Even in low-population areas, the screen tearing was apparent. As such, if you have a TV with VRR (I am using an LG C-model OLED TV), you should absolutely play with it on. With that on, the screen tearing disappears, naturally. 

Performance Mode – Crimson Desert on PS5 Pro

However, screen tearing aside, I noticed a lot of environmental pop-in in the mid-range of your view at any given time on screen in Performance and Balanced mode. In Quality mode, pop-in was reduced to essentially zero. In the other two modes, though, there is a distracting amount of foliage pop-in and an even more distracting amount of terrain load-in. It's quite odd in that the mountainous rocks didn't necessarily pop in out of nowhere, but they almost morphed onto the screen. The resulting effect is a very jarring experience. I liken it to noticing something moving out of the corner of your eye – you're watching Kliff, the main character, from a third-person perspective, so your attention is on him, but in your periphery, you'll see a lot of movement in the cliffs of mountains, the leaves of forests, etc. I don't like it. 

I tried turning off 120Hz mode on my TV because I've seen some online suggest doing that to enhance your picture, but, truthfully, it changed very little for me. It might have sharpened the image up a bit (I won't pretend to know why), but my main issue with the visuals – the pop-in – remained. It's unfortunate because the 60FPS of the Performance mode, and the 40FPS of the Balanced mode, are actually quite stable in the game's opening hours. That said, I have read online that the FPS struggles to remain stable in more populated areas of the game, such as robust city villages and large-scale battles. 

Balanced Mode – Crimson Desert PS5 Pro

With all this taken into account, the best mode for now seems to be Quality mode, with a well-implemented 4K resolution and a stable 30FPS. Unfortunately, 30 FPS isn't the move for an action game like this, so ultimately this is a lose-lose situation for me. I can, of course, get over the pop-in of Performance and Balanced as I've certainly done it for games before (ahem, Pokémon Violet), but it's obviously not ideal and further proof that this game was probably optimized for PCs first before anything else. Developer Pearl Abyss has already released a patch to address some visual issues, so I suspect the game will be running better in a month than it is today. 

Quality Mode – Crimson Desert PS5 Pro

To sum up my thoughts: there's nothing particularly atrocious about the game's visual issues, but there's no obvious choice for which mode to play in. It depends on what you favor and prefer in open-world single-player RPGs: gorgeous resolution with a stable but lower framerate (Quality), or a higher framerate with blurrier resolution but lots of strange artifacting and pop-in (Performance or Balanced).

Crimson Desert Xbox Series X Performance

On Xbox Series X, much of the issues outlined above persist on Microsoft's platform. In a complimentary way, the game seems to have parity on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 Pro based on comparing Wes and I's experiences.

 

Like the PlayStation 5 Pro screenshots, the gallery above similarly showcases screenshots taken at the same spot in the game in Performance, Balanced, and Quality mode in that order.

I also saw improvements when toggling on the VRR setting, but compared to Wes' PlayStation experience, I didn't encounter much screen tearing. Environmental pop-in, however, was a distracting issue. But not nearly as distracting as protagonist Kliff's beard. On any of the settings, but especially Performance (more or less my universal setting of choice when given the option), Kliff's beard and other elements of fur and hair look fractured and low-resolution.

But far and away my biggest issue was the noticeable lag time between pressing a button and seeing that action performed on-screen. Scrolling through menus is particularly slow and the few combat encounters I engaged in became less about pulling off combos and expert blocking and more about tapping RB to swing my sword as much as possible and hoping the enemy would die before I did. It felt like I was issuing battle commands to a Pokémon more than engaging with combat myself.

Crimson Desert on Xbox Series X/S. Don't look too closely at the beard.

The game, however, does look impressive in moments where you stop and taking it in. The screenshots above were taken from a moment when an NPC encourages you to slow down and take a look at the view. And when the environment did finish popping in, I fully admit being impressed by how far in the distance I could see and how great it looked.

Like Wes wrote above, Developer Pearl Abyss is already patching both the console and PC versions of the game to address some visual issues. It's fair to hope that even in the coming weeks, the game will be running and looking better. But it seems, for the moment at least, PC, unsurprisingly, is going to be your best bet  if you have the rig to handle it.