It’s easy to feel disparaged when a new looter makes itself even vaguely apparent. The genre saw probably one great release this year – Destiny 2: The Final Shape – but otherwise, it’s a landscape of ruin. Two of the biggest titles – Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Skull and Bones – were failures, the former to the extent that it contributed to a $200 million impact on Warner Bros. Discovery’s revenue. One could blame the skepticism of fans, but neither title scored with the critics either.
That’s why it’s interesting to see the response to The First Descendant, Nexon’s upcoming looter shooter.
The Earth has seen better days after an invasion by the Vulgus and the mysterious Colossus, but there is some hope in the form of the Descendants. These are humans with something in their genes called Arche that awaken powerful abilities, whether it’s lightning and gravity control or jumping on enemies until they die. Different strokes for different folks.
Announced as Project Magnum in 2021, it was easy to dismiss it as little more than attempting to cash in on the genre too late, ignoring other failures over the years like Anthem and Marvel’s Avengers. However, as the years have gone by, it’s slowly come into its own as a strong alternative that seeks to combine the genre’s best mechanics into one package.
The shooting and overall build-crafting – especially the Modules, polarities, mod capacity and skill-changing options. The Battlefields and their various objectives and activities are reminiscent of Destiny’s Patrol Spaces. There’s even a hint of Nightfall-like difficulty with the modifiers for its Infiltration Operations and Special Operations. However Amorphous Materials can be farmed from various activities and opened in boss battles known as Void Intercepts for rewards.
The latter sees you taking on a Colossus, either solo or with friends, and breaking off its parts to expose its weak spots. It’s very Monster Hunter-esque, right down to grappling onto a point and battering a part to destroy (which I admittedly had little success with when playing the recent preview build). There are also form changes and Enraged states where you must maneuver around the arena to survive.
Then there’s the crafting and research, with the former playing a part as you tinker with Ultimate Weapons and Reactors, both farming a core part of the end-game reward loop. The latter is necessary to unlock new Descendants, as you gather resources for each component and you even have a requisite waiting period before it’s available to use.
It may sound like The First Descendant is shamelessly stealing from other established looters, but I see it more as iterating on what works. A library of all the relevant Modules, Descendants, crafting materials, Amorphous Materials and weapons a la Destiny 2’s Collections tab? Sign me up. There are also some quality-of-life features from gacha games like Honkai: Star Rail.
If you want to unlock Sharen as a playable character, you don’t need to look up each component and each material required and then check where they drop from. Click on the material, and the missions where it’s available will open up. You can then select the mission and question and launch into it. There’s even a Monster Hunter-like wishlist feature for the items you’re targeting and a Laboratory that lets you test our weapons and builds against various enemies.
Some may view this kind of imitation as more than just flattery, but as history has shown, ignoring the competition isn’t always the best idea. See Anthem’s leadership reportedly not wanting Destiny even mentioned during its development, forget looking at it for what works and how that all turned out. Even a big name like Tom Clancy’s The Division suffered at launch before looking to other games for revamping its end-game loot and build-crafting.
Then you have The Division 2, which did away with the Incursions of its predecessor and embraced raids like Destiny. Their success is probably up for debate, but they were still a step up. Even the recent Diablo 4 took some cues from Last Epoch for its crafting overhaul. Between The First Descendant having those quality-of-life features or not having them and then garnering feedback from players demanding the same, I’ll go with the former. Of course, having so much available content, both in the story and end-game out of the gate, doesn’t hurt either.
Another thing I like about The First Descendant is how the Descendants are more than just suits – they’re actual characters with roles in the story. Bunny isn’t just the speedster of the group – she’s happy-go-lucky and charismatic on the surface but has abandonment issues and a history of misdemeanors. Then you have Sharen – a no-nonsense assassin who sought to kill an enemy commander, failed, ended up in a prosthetic body and deals with near-constant pain, all for the sake of revenge.
The jury is still out on their overall impact on the narrative. However, you also have individual stories for each, starting with Bunny’s when the game launches (and more to come for the other Descendants). You’ll play as Bunny during this and get to know her better, which goes a long way towards fleshing out the character. Does it put a dampener on those who enjoy creating their own characters? Sure, but this is an interesting way to tie the various Descendants into the story while providing players with different play styles and classes.
This isn’t to say that I have no concerns for The First Descendant. As content-packed as it looks at launch, the post-launch is a completely different story. Nexon will add more Descendants and their stories alongside new weapons, but will there be new activities, limited-time events, bosses and objective types? How will it expand on the story? These are questions that remain unanswered.
There’s also the question of monetization. Much of what the preview showcased is no different from contemporary titles. You have the Destiny 2-style Season Pass, which includes weapons as potential rewards (but at level 1, so an instant power gain isn’t possible). The shop allows for directly purchasing Descendants, though you can also get them by just playing the game.
However, you can’t earn farm premium currency like Platinum by trading items in-game, at least not at this stage. The sheer amount of purchases may turn some people off, even if it’s a free-to-play title, but I’m worried that Nexon will go even further. It doesn’t necessarily have the best reputation with monetization (see Dungeon Fighter Online), but we’ll wait and see.
For now, The First Descendant has made several of the right moves before and after its launch, showcasing its end-game loop and, more recently, delving into all the build-crafting that players can expect. While it won’t likely challenge the genre’s best or most established, another viable alternative for looter shooter fans to dive into is always good. Who knows? Maybe it can grow beyond that into something other titles will emulate in the future, if not stem some criticism that looters tend to garner.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.