The First Descendant is a third-person looter-shooter from developer NEXON Games Co. This free-to-play Action RPG promises a unique setting, robust character development and a story-driven experience for players to dive into. I recently had a few days to dabble in the world of The First Descendant ahead of its July 2nd launch.
In The First Descendant, players will take on the role of one of several Descendants, a group of super-powered humans tasked with retrieving an important artifact that could change the fate of humanity. Each Descendant comes with their own set of unique skills that help differentiate gameplay and load-outs. For the first playthrough of The First Descendant players will be able to choose from one of three available Descendants, Lepic, a grenade-wielding Damage dealer, Ajax, a brute force tank with a variety of defensive capabilities or Viessa, a caster with an affinity for ice-based, ranged attacks.
During the preview we were given access to both level 1 and level 40 boosted characters and could select from the wider pool of Descendants for testing (at level 40). The sheer diversity of characters and kits creates some fun build options for players to explore. At launch, after completing the main campaign players will have the option as part of the end game to collect in-game materials to research and collect additional Descendants to work with.
Each Descendant does look and feel quite different in combat, offering their own unique strategies and flair to the combat mechanics. For the vast majority of the playthrough, I stuck with Lepic, the aforementioned grenade chucker extraordinaire. His playstyle focuses substantially on AOE damage with one ability drawing enemies together to maximize grenade damage. It’s a fun, unique style of combat that felt great to play.
“The world of The First Descendant is well built with the level of design and world-building both being well thought through and implemented.”
The combat loop in general, regardless of Descendant choice, is quick and fun. With three weapon slots to work with, players can equip from a variety of weapon types each with unique ammo types to collect (think Destiny 2). While some guns will tend to hit much harder, the trade-off is less available ammo forcing players to make quick decisions on how best to take out the hordes of enemies that they will find in the world. Combat feels similar to Warframe though not nearly as high flying and sword oriented.
This is not to say that The First Descendant doesn’t leverage vertical space. Each Descendant comes equipped with a grappling hook for easy navigation around the map. Thankfully the grappling hook has a short cooldown, two charges and can be used in combat, making it a great means of quickly evading oncoming enemy fire. It’s a nice addition to the already quick and engaging combat loop.
Combat in The First Descendant is further enhanced through weapon and module modifications. Both are unlocked as you progress through the main campaign. These two forms of crafting allow you to further refine your kit and combat style. While they can feel a little bit overwhelming at first glance (at least when thrown into the deep end at level 40), if you follow the main campaign, you’ll naturally be guided through how each works making it less daunting and quite approachable. If you’re someone like me who tends to leave refining your build until the end game there is a handy “recommended” button that takes care of equipping the best in-slot modifications for you.
The world of The First Descendant is well built with the level of design and world-building both being well thought through and implemented. Even while playing on the Xbox Series S for the preview, the world, architecture and character models all looked beautiful. The world is divided into zones surrounding a central city hub where crafting, upgrading and many of the stories’ narrative beats take place. The surrounding zones each carry their own unique bio and aesthetic with new enemy types being introduced in each zone. It’s a fairly diverse space when hopping from zone to zone. While each zone isn’t massive the number of zones to explore helps create a feeling of an open world.
“Though my time with The First Descendant was short I’m impressed with the depth and delivery of the story, the combat loop and the progression systems offered.”
The First Descendant‘s story is delivered through a series of well-done voiceovers and beautiful cutscenes. In fact, for a free-to-play title, I was quite impressed with how much depth and character development there was to explore and experience during the playthrough. Cut scenes helped push the narrative forward while adding depth to the NPCs in it. The only slight issue noted was that the lip sync during cutscenes was most definitely out of step with the English voice-over. Despite this small critique, I found myself watching cutscenes more often than not which is a departure from my typical hold B to skip option that I tend to default to.
While I didn’t spend much time at the end game NEXON does promise some interesting activities for players to explore. A big emphasis in the end game will be on farming materials to unlock other Descendants—an activity that can be done without spending real money. I was quite excited to hear this as free-to-play can have some aggressive microtransaction models.
After looking through the store (at least the preview version of the store we had access to) there wasn’t anything that stood out as a pay-to-win item. While there were a few boost items, it was in the form of material and gold-gathering bonuses. Otherwise, everything seems to be accessible by gathering materials in the game. The vast majority of items in the shop were merely cosmetics.
Another important part of the end-game experience will be crafting and modifying ultimate weapons. These unique items can be enhanced through the crafting system and offer some pretty powerful and specific bonuses to your kit. Additionally, they will come with their unique attack creating yet another layer to the combat experience. To help facilitate resource gathering players will have the option to replay missions on higher levels of difficulty for better rewards allowing for additional replay.
“The First Descendant looks like it has all the foundational work to develop a long-lasting Looter-Shooter that could compete with many of the AAA titles in the genre.”
Finally, there will be a few different unique mission types for players to explore at end-game. These come in the form of infiltration and Special Operations. Each can be modified to cater the challenge to your liking and offer unique rewards. Think Greater Rifts in Diablo III but with more guns.
Though my time with The First Descendant was short I’m impressed with the depth and delivery of the story, the combat loop and the progression systems offered. While there is still room for polish and further development, The First Descendant looks like it has all the foundational work to develop a long-lasting Looter-Shooter that could compete with many of the AAA titles in the genre.
The First Descendant releases on July 2, 2024, on PC, PS 4/5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One.
