The First Descendant is a fun co-op third-person shooter, but there’s much more room for improvement.
Even while the number of free-to-play games is constantly increasing, there is a noticeable dearth of fun and engaging games nowadays. The First Descendant becomes another free-to-play title that makes it into the scene, and it has been one of the most looked-forward-to games for a little while now. But, this is in the form of a looter shooter, such as Destiny 2, that its developer, NEXON Co., Ltd, has introduced to us, where you can either fight solo or with friends in this RPG.
Surely, you’ve been watching some footage of the game, and it has some interesting aspects that are worth trying. Just so you know, it’s available on the current and previous-gen consoles: PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One, and Series X and S. Moreover, it’s available for the PC players.
Despite the game being free, there is a concern that goes through your head. What you’re here for is if the game justifies the hype or if it is simply another title that embodies the anticipation is better than the reality. Well, that’s what we’ll find out, and if you stick around, you’ll get your answer. We will go through The First Descendant’s context, gameplay, mechanics, and more.
The First Descendant is centred around players taking on the role of descendants, whose responsibility is to tackle the invaders to save the human race and protect the Ingris Continent. We are talking about fighting for survival as you or you and your friends take strategic actions against relentless foes.
You can take up to 4 players, undertake a series of missions, and develop your character as you progress the story and uncover the secrets of the defendants. Even if you don’t have friends to play with, many random players will happily chime in on your missions. And yes, you will stumble upon the tough bosses. But at the beginning, you’re required to select a Descendant before you start, and each has unique combat styles, abilities, and characteristics.
The one that you pick will become your first choice Descendant. Later, as you progress, you’ll be able to collect lots of the Descendants, and you’ll be able to play as other Descendants. But let’s discuss the three starting Descendants.
Firstly, you have Viessa Descendant, a female character specializing in ice attacks. She is said to be a buffer who uses chill at any given moment. She can use the chill mechanic to freeze enemies and release cold-snap attacks as she can pave her way in between enemies.
Then you have the Lepic male Descendant character, who uses explosives as his main source of attack. He has a mechanical right arm that can eradicate many enemies, and he has an Arsenal of powerful explosive attacks that really pack a punch.
Finally, Ajax, a brute robotic character, is a tanker that uses Void Energy. This is very helpful. Descendant can coordinate his crew with its forcefield, which protects its crew members while at the same time being able to deflect incoming enemy attacks.
You can choose whichever you please, of course, but realize that each has different strategic advantages. For example, the Lepic Descendant is incredibly useful in helping destroy a decent amount of explosive coverage to avoid being cornered. And, of course, there is an abundance of weapons for you to choose from on the battlefield.
There are a couple of pointers that The First Descendant did well on. The combat is one of them. Despite some of the latency issues, and it’s not immaculate, the combat is somewhat enjoyable, especially with friends. You can mix gunfire with the movement abilities, as well as the crazy support and zipline kits that make the experience a little easier.
Also, there are four weapon modules that are triggered by pressing the L1 button, along with the four shaped buttons. For example, if you select L1 and the triangle buttons together, you activate a traction grenade, which pulls enemies to one location. Or if you press the L1 with the X button, it’ll throw a grenade, which deals with AoE damage.
Or if you select L1 with the square button, then you’ll initiate your chosen character’s overkill mechanic. Because my character is Lepic, it’ll use his prosthetic arm as a weapon. Plus, pressing R2 will fire the launcher, and so on. There are a lot of good weapons for you to use, as well as modules for you to select for your inventory.
You also have the sub-attacks that, whenever in cooldown, can be compensated by allowing you to swing your firearm to execute a weaker sub-attack. And yes, the storytelling is compelling, but with a lot of subpar missions. But that’s really all that can be said about the game.
Now, we move on to the bad side. I’ve noticed that after just a couple of hours of playing, the missions are not very challenging. It feels like you’d be fine mindlessly shooting against enemies, and you don’t need to put much effort into fighting most enemies.
Ironically, it gets worse when you’re playing in co-op, as doing so makes things much easier, and the experience feels like a speed run. If you’re not doing missions, you’re just going around the map and battling enemies and then battling enemies again, making you feel like you’re in an endless loop. Moreover, the Landing drops are okay, but there is not much to scream about, which ruins the idea of being a “looter” shooter. After some time, the looting becomes tedious and, most times, not worth it.
The First Descendant’s brightest spark is, without a doubt, its graphics. If you want to know what epitomizes what modern-day visuals should be, this game defines it. It makes sense as the incredibly powerful Unreal Engine 5 was used for the photorealistic, futuristic designs.
It’s even better in 4K or even 2K resolution, whether on console or PC. The visuals are similar to those of the recently released Hellblade 2. Seriously, they are amazing and jaw-dropping, and I could look at the designs for hours in amazement.
The First Descendant is an interesting game at first, but after playing for a bit, you’ll then soon realize that other than the story, it doesn’t offer much else, if at all, later down the line, and it’s a game for you to just goof around if you have nothing better to do.
It’s clear that they focused much more on fidelity than performance, which is a major pet peeve for most gamers. There’s nothing wrong with putting a lot of emphasis on the graphics, but the gameplay needs as much attention—even more would be better.
The silver lining is that this game is free, so there’s no harm in giving it a shot. The game has something there, but it will need more improvements to get the best out of it. Plus, plenty of The First Descendant updates along the way will feature more characters, weapons, adjustments, and so on. So, hopefully, The First Descendant will become a more interesting game in the future.
