On the afternoon of the 30th, a street near Hongik University in Mapo District, Seoul. Along the glass wall hung a red-lit logo and an image of an armored soldier. This was the site where the "AMD×Crimson Desert pop-up store 2025 Hongdae" opened. Sunlight reflected off the concrete outer wall, and beyond the clear glass, the AMD and Crimson Desert logos appeared together.
Entering the pop-up store, a banner with the Crimson Desert logo and the AMD wording engraved side by side greeted visitors. The interior, with concrete-textured walls and exposed piping lights, evoked a battlefield in the game. The first floor was an event zone, and the second floor was a demo zone. The pop-up store was planned through collaboration between AMD and Pearl Abyss so visitors could try "Crimson Desert" in a high-performance gaming environment in advance.
Crimson Desert is an open-world action-adventure game that Pearl Abyss has developed over seven years. It is set for worldwide release on Mar. 20 (Korea time) next year and will be launched as a multi-platform title on Steam, PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series.
The first floor featured interactive events such as a roulette, darts, and a hammer game. The roulette board listed prizes including "AMD×Crimson Desert mouse pad," "hoodie," "backpack," and "magnet," and participants took turns spinning to see the results. On one side stood a hammer machine decorated for Halloween, and the walls were lined with AMD logos and panels of partner brands. Products from hardware partners such as MSI, Gigabyte, ASRock, and Lenovo were displayed throughout the space.
In the photo zone, a Crimson Desert knight character stood wearing real armor, and visitors took pictures. Under a banner printed with the AMD and Crimson Desert emblems side by side was an information booth for the event, and during the pop-up period a stamp tour and goods drawing were held for visitors.
The second floor, reached by stairs, was quieter than the first. The lighting was gently dimmed, and high-performance PCs and laptops were lined up along the windows. AMD Ryzen- and Radeon-based desktops and Lenovo Legion gaming laptops were set up for demos, and each booth displayed a notice reading "50-minute play zone."
After completing reservations at a kiosk, visitors sat down, put on headsets, and immersed themselves in the screens. The monitor showed Crimson Desert's detailed open world, with scenes of a character riding a horse up a hill or engaging in combat playing smoothly. The entire space was quiet, and from outside only the soft clicks of keyboards and mice could be heard. Pearl Abyss staff moved between demo seats to check equipment status and guide participants so they could get comfortable with the controls.
The entire event space was arranged like a showroom where technology and content were combined. RGB coolers inside each PC were lit, and on a nearby table AMD graphics cards, SSDs, and motherboards were on display.
Pearl Abyss used this pop-up store to highlight the capabilities of its in-house engine, "BlackSpace." Developed as the successor to the Black Desert engine, the BlackSpace engine is designed to finely control graphics quality and physics calculations and is also the core foundation of Crimson Desert. A Pearl Abyss official said, "This is an opportunity to directly verify optimization performance through collaboration with AMD," adding, "We are continuing stabilization work through next March before the global launch."