Two years after we first covered the game ahead of a PC beta test, NEXON has finally released The First Descendant, its free-to-play third-person looter shooter game. During this time, the Unreal Engine 5-powered title underwent various tweaks and additions, some directly requested by fans (over two million users played the cross-play open beta).
Beomjun Lee, Game Producer at NEXON Games, said in a statement:
With The First Descendant being our first global multi-platform launch, we wanted to develop something that allowed the voices of our players to be heard. Our goal is not only to create a game that we are proud of, but also to create something our players will love and enjoy for a long time. We implemented many changes for launch based on the community’s requests and we hope it makes the experience even more enjoyable.
Minseok Joo, Game Creative Director at NEXON Games, added:
Descendants, from everyone on our development team, we thank you sincerely for choosing to join us in the fight against The Vulgus. Back when we first developed this concept in 2019, we set out to create a world inspired by some of our personal favorite looter shooters. The genre holds a special place in our hearts, and our development team has worked hard to create a game that we believe stands proudly among those prominent titles.
In the game, players choose one out of 19 playable characters, the titular Descendants, heroes who protect humanity against the alien invaders from The Vulgus. The playable roster is split between 14 original Descendants and 5 high-performance ultimate Descendants. Three new playable characters have been introduced with the launch build: Esiemo, Enzo, and Yujin. Esiemo handles explosives with a unique and dynamic gameplay style; Enzo is a support character with the ability to supply ammunition, making him suitable for tactical weapons. Yujin is a healing Descendant, and when played cooperatively with another player, can bring new cooperative strategies. Additionally, new high-performance Ultimate Descendants have been added, joining the previously announced Ultimate Lepic and Ultimate Viessa: Ultimate Ajax, Ultimate Bunny, and Ultimate Grey.
As with any looter shooter, players will enhance their character’s statistics and gear by equipping loot, in this case, modules (of which there are 560). The First Descendant includes 11 weapon types and 22 Ultimate weapons at launch. Modules can boost their attack power, modify recoil, and add extra effects.
The endgame content includes the instanced dungeons named Infiltration Operations and large boss raids called Void Intercept Battles. In the former, players can choose between normal and hard difficulty. The latter allows you to add extra challenge options called modifiers before starting the mission. The more challenge options you add, the more points you’ll be able to earn for more rewards. There are 16 Infiltration Operations at launch.
In Void Intercept Battles, Descendants are tasked with defeating the massive Colossi bosses (who are equipped with unique attack patterns) by targeting weak points with unique strategies. This content is meant to be played cooperatively with up to four players, but it can also be completed solo. At launch, there are 16 bosses, including Executioner, Dead Bride, Devourer, Pyromaniac, Swamp Walker, Obstructer, Frost Walker, and Molten Fortress.
The main story was also revised following the community’s feedback, making it more immersive. Descendants will now appear as NPCs (non-player characters) throughout the storyline. They will also have their own quests to better understand their personalities, starting with Bunny, whose quest is available at launch.
So far, a lot of players are checking out The First Descendant. NEXON’s new game has reached Steam’s Top 10 chart. As we are writing this article, the game is ranked #6 after Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, Elden Ring, PUBG, and Banana, with around 217K players currently online, according to SteamDB. However, user reviews are currently quite low: only 42% of the 5,349 reviews already posted recommend the game.
As a reminder, The First Descendant supports NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 (Super Resolution, Frame Generation, and Ray Reconstruction), NVIDIA DLAA, and Reflex on PC. According to NVIDIA, the GeForce RTX 4090 can run at an average of 125 FPS at 4K (thanks to a 2.5X DLSS boost) with ray tracing enabled and Super Resolution set to Performance mode.
AMD users can activate AMD FSR 2.2 (although it should be updated to FSR 3 soon), and Intel XeSS 1.1 is also supported. Moreover, the game supports HDR10+ displays. If you don’t have a powerful enough PC, cloud streaming via GeForce is also available.
On consoles, the developers offer three graphic modes: Fidelity, Balanced, and Performance. Ray Tracing and AMD Frame Generation are also optionally available.
