Let’s ignore The First Descendant review discourse and talk about what Nexon can do to make this game amazing

The First Descendant isn’t a perfect game, but it has the potential to be great.

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•What is it?•The bad•The good•Letter to Nexon•Fun comes first

The First Descendantis a new addition to the MMORPG looter shooter genre, a free-to-play online co-op game from South Korean publisher Nexon that lands with the promise of years of continued updates and developer support. The First Descendant falls under the same curse as many live service games, however, and that’s mixed reviews and harsh criticism — especially at launch.

Single-player games can be reviewed largely on their own merits, but live service games are analyzed with the weight of internet and server stability, online player behavior, and community outrage pressing down on them. The most successful live service games barrel past those obstacles, while the titles that fail to evolve with the community are buried under them. It’s still not clear on which side of the line The First Descendant will fall, but I seem to be more optimistic than many fellow critics.

The First Descendant currently sits at an abysmal 56 onMetacritic, a score that I frankly don’t agree accurately conveys the quality and potential of this new live service arrival. User reviews are just as mixed, driven by major server outages near launch on top of a myriad of other complaints (much of it valid). For my part, I’m not going to add another review score to the discourse, and instead, I will outline my thoughts after putting dozens of hours into The First Descendant.

I’m also including a letter to Nexon, the developer and publisher of The First Descendant, on the changes and improvements that I believe can make The First Descendant a significantly better game. Agree or disagree, share your thoughts in the comments so our voices as players can be heard.

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What is The First Descendant?

• Price:Free at Microsoft Store (Xbox)|Steam (PC)• Release date:July 2, 2024• Developer:Nexon Games• Publisher:Nexon• Genre:MMORPG / Looter shooter• Players:Up to four-player co-op• Install size:37.7GB• Playtime:60+ hours• Platforms:Xbox, Windows PC, PlayStation• Played on:Xbox Series X

The First Descendant is a free-to-play, massively multiplayer online role-playing game. It’s also a looter shooter, putting it in a similar category of video games as mainstaysDestiny 2andWarframe. You play as a Descendant, part of a group of humans that possess unique abilities passed down to them by the Ancestors, an ancient civilization that once dominated the world.

Your mission? Defend the remnants of humanity on the continent of Ingris from the Vulgus, an alien race intent on acquiring more power, technology, and knowledge… no matter what needs to be destroyed on the way. You also have to contend with the Colossi, a mysterious race of massive beings that wander the Void and, when descending on Ingris, cause untold destruction and mayhem.

To succeed, you’ll need to work with other players across many varied battlefields. Play as different descendants, level up your skills and abilities, upgrade your weapons and gear, and collect valuable resources necessary to reach new levels of prowess. It’s a massive game that players can sink hundreds of hours into without seeing all the game has to offer, and it’s only going to get bigger as Nexon updates it in the future.

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The First Descendant is now available onXbox Series X|S, Windows PC, andPlayStation 5and is completely free to play with in-game microtransactions.

The First Descendant: Recognizing the bad

I’d like for this article to be more positive in overall tone, praising what The First Descendant gets right and looking to the future at what can be improved, but I can’t do that properly without also recognizing the many things that The First Descendant doesn’t do well right now. For one, let’s talk about the main campaign and its accompanying narrative.

For many live service games, the story plot is essentially just set dressing for the gameplay, and The First Descendant tends to fall into that category. The campaign is generic, the writing is average, and the voice acting is okay at best, with subpar and entirely mismatched lip-syncing. The cinematics are gorgeous, though, and I do find the Vulgus to be somewhat interesting enemies with Karel as their moody, angry dictator. The story also doesn’t feel like anafterthought, as there’s always something happening to move things along.

I hope that future expansions to the story (and there will be expansions) focus more on the characters and their nuanced personalities and motivations, the performances from animations and voice acting, and the general quality of the overarching plot. More exclusive side missions for more of the Descendants would be great to see, too.

Speaking of missions, that’s another weak point for The First Descendant: the same four or five mission types get awfully repetitive after a while. I hope to see The First Descendant do better in the future by introducing more diverse and unique mission types.

•Cross-save & cross-play guide•Find & open Encrypted Vaults•Useful interactive maps•Getting Lv 100 gear & weapons•Faster Battle Pass progression

Another easy criticism about The First Descendant is the social features… or the lack thereof. Sure, there’s an in-game friend list you can manage and party features, but there’s little beyond that. There’s no easy way to request help from across the game on difficult missions, Intercept Battles, Outposts, and beyond. There’s no incentive to help other players either, nor does there seem to be much synergy between players who aren’t already friends playing the game together.

This dynamic also makes some parts of The First Descendant needlessly difficult, like late-game Colossi boss battles that introduce unique and complex mechanics. There’s no way to coordinate with random players you matchmake with, which makes these Intercept Battles frustrating rather than challenging as easily dealt-with mechanics become hard walls until you happen across the right teammates.

Progression in other areas can feel tedious, too. The First Descendant’s interface lacks polish, character, and flow, leading to pointless roadblocks and delays in several areas like unskippable animations when completing research projects, unavoidable menus when attempting to restart a mission, and a confusing morass of overlapping menus across character customization, your inventory, and more.

The optional Battle Pass feels too slow to progress thanks to relying mostly on set challenges, as well, with players having hundreds of hours in the game still not through the pre-season pass. A little more XP just for completing missions, Intercept Battles, Outposts, and Operations would do wonders.

Beyond other minor complaints like Ultimate Reactors strangely needing you to actively use a specific Ultimate Weapon to gain the stat boosts (instead of just having that weapon in your loadout), some performance issues, and other small problems, there’s also the widespread distrust of Nexon, the publisher and developer of The First Descendant. This is wheremanyof the negative user reviews for The First Descendant are focused, and I understand it.

Nexon does not have a great reputation for putting its players first, with past legal trouble related to misrepresenting in-game drop rates and data and aggressive microtransaction practices. With The First Descendant, these past missteps combine with kernel-level anti-cheat software on Windows PC (this is a powerful anti-cheat that has incredibly deep access to your computer, similar to Riot Games' Vanguard anti-cheat forVALORANT) and a questionable EULA privacy notice about collecting and using player data.

There’s no hard evidence that Nexon is abusing The First Descendant or its anti-cheat software for nefarious reasons, nor is the privacy notice that far from many other live service, online multiplayer, and Unreal Engine-powered games. Still, it’s understandable that players would be concerned, making it crucial that Nexon practices clear, honest, and transparent communication on all matters regarding player information and data.

The First Descendant: Acknowledging the good

A game can feature a terrible story, suffer from major technical issues, or be mired in controversy and still find success solely because it’sfunto play. The First Descendantisfun enough that I’ve found myself hooked on its core gameplay loop when the vast majority of live service games slide off me like oil on water. The movement and traversal mechanics are slick and fluid, the combat is diverse and satisfying, and there’s so much versatility when it comes to building a loadout that fits your playstyle.

Each Descendant feels viable in their own way, with unique abilities that are enjoyable and valuable to use. Sure, The First Descendant draws heavy inspiration from the genre’s top dogs, but when the core gameplay is this fun, isn’t that a good thing? Up to a certain extent, loot and rewards earned while playing also feel worthwhile, allowing you to regularly enhance your loadout and Descendants — this isn’t always true, sadly, but I’ll get to that in the next section.

The healthy roster of Descendants at launch and the huge variety of weapons, gear and upgrades, abilities, and combinations between them all means that there are basically endless ways to dominate every battle in The First Descendant. It feels great to find the mixture that works for you. Pursuing a new Descendant or that missing piece to complement your loadout is immensely satisfying when you succeed, contributing to the addictive nature of the gameplay loop.

The pieces don’t all fit together perfectly, but The First Descendant is refreshing to me in comparison to Destiny 2 and Warframe, which are by their nature restricted by theyearsof content and updates laden on top of the base game. The First Descendant feels approachable, giving me plenty of room to acclimate to its world and fall in love with its gameplay before showering me with a colossal amount of content.

And there is alothere at launch. The First Descendant doesn’t end when the campaign does, with hundreds of hours of content for players to perfect their loadouts, tackle increasingly difficult battles and challenges, and pursue the rarest and most desirable Descendants and gear in the game. Nexon has already outlined an aggressiveupdate roadmap for The First Descendant, too, showing how the content pool is only going to grow from here.

I’ve been unable to get into Destiny 2 or Warframe multiple times in the past, but I find myself excited to follow The First Descendant on its journey. Even after finishing the main campaign and gaining access to top-level gear and rewards, I still have barely scratched the surface of what’s possible in this game in terms of loadouts, with players discovering potent combos that can melt even the most difficult of bosses.

I’m thrilled to be able to explore The First Descendant’s endgame rather than exhausted, especially because I don’t plan to obsessively chase hyper-specific research components and instead intend to play the missions I want when I want (and enjoy whatever rewards I get from it). That’s not how everyone is going to play, of course, but I also thought of the grind-happy players when outlining what Nexon can do to improve The First Descendant below.

Gameplay and endless endgame content aside, I do enjoy the world of The First Descendant. Yes, the story is average in its current state, but world-building is of a higher grade. I love the varied environments, the art and character designs, and the underlying history of this decades-long conflict for the future of humanity built on a legacy centuries-old. It’s interesting enough that, as I said earlier, I want future story expansions to explore more of the characters and their motivations, as well as the world and its history.

Of course, I can’t talk about a live service game without mentioning the, well,live servicepart, and The First Descendant is off to a strong start. Communication issues aside (more on that later), the initial updates Nexon has delivered to players have been well-received, quickly delivering on player feedback and avoiding endless nerfs to anything that the community finds to be fun.

The latest1.04 patch for The First Descendantis an excellent example, as it resolves an exploit but still makes its location a more valuable farming location, decreases cooldown timers and increases rewards for Outposts, and makes a valuable resource far easier to obtain. It’s a small update ahead of thefirst major content update, which will buff various Descendants and Unique gear in addition to adding new Descendants, new gear and upgrades, and a new Colossi. Nice.

The First Descendant: My advice for Nexon

The First Descendant team at Nexon, I have genuinely been enjoying playing your game despite its various imperfections. Now that I’ve finished the main campaign, this game may actually stick around as part of my regular rotation, which few live service games can boast. However, The First Descendant faces two major enemies that need to be overcome (and remain bested) for this game to achieve long-lasting success. You have to respect your players' time, and you have to respect your players' money.

So, to make things simple, here’s a list of changes and new features that would go a long way toward fulfilling The First Descendant’s potential, and I do believe this game has a lot of potential. The foundation is solid, but there’s still plenty of work to be done.

Some of these changes are simple, and some will take a long time to implement, but everything on this list is something that could help elevate The First Descendant to new heights in the genre. Simply having fun gameplay and adding new content isn’t enough to stay relevant, especially when you’re playing on the same field as behemoths like Destiny and Warframe.

Seriously, though, Nexon? You really need to get better at communicating with your player base. Let’s not have anothersilly “Valby Run” nerf debaclefor no good reason. Listen to the players, be transparent about future plans and updates, listen to the players some more, be honest about every element of monetization, data collection, and game development, and then listen to the players for good measure. Oh, and listen to the players — The First Descendant kind of needs them.

In The First Descendant, fun should come first

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It doesn’t matter how much people enjoy playing your game, if they don’t feel like the game is respecting the time, effort, and money they put in, they’ll leave for greener pastures and never look back. So many games like this forget what it means tohave fun, eventually turning into a mindless grind fest that players participate in because they’re obsessed with completion, not because they’re enjoying their time with the game.

Right now, I am cautiously optimistic that Nexon is committed to keeping The First Descendantfun, as evidenced by the developer’s tendency so far to avoid pointless nerfs. Powerful builds in the meta are being publicly embraced and other Descendants and weapons are becoming more powerful in turn. Nexon has a serious issue with communication at the moment, but the updates we’ve seen so far (and know are coming) make me feel good about where The First Descendant is heading.

If Nexon continues to listen to player feedback and the improvements I want to see are made reality, I think The First Descendant can count on having me as a player for the foreseeable future. I’d argue that The First Descendant is already one of thebest Xbox gamesfor fans of this genre, and it has a lot of potential to get even better. Don’t mess it up, Nexon.

The First Descendant —Free at Microsoft Store (Xbox)|Steam (PC)

Explore a sci-fi world pitting the remnants of humanity against the terrifying might of the Vulgus and the mysterious Colossi. Refine your abilities with over a dozen powerful, diverse characters in this free-to-play, MMORPG looter shooter.

Zachary Boddy (They / Them) is a Staff Writer for Windows Central, primarily focused on covering the latest news in tech and gaming, the best Xbox and PC games, and the most interesting Windows and Xbox hardware. They have been gaming and writing for most of their life starting with the original Xbox, and started out as a freelancer for Windows Central and its sister sites in 2019. Now a full-fledged Staff Writer, Zachary has expanded from only writing about all things Minecraft to covering practically everything on which Windows Central is an expert, especially when it comes to Microsoft. You can find Zachary on Twitter@BoddyZachary.