The First Descendant in review: Looting, shooting, jerking

A competitor to Destinya beautiful game world based on the UnrealEngine5many characters with different skills and all of this as Free-to-play model? Not only does that sound very good, it also works quite well at first glance. But The First Descendant is still struggling with major teething issues that the developers should get under control as quickly as possible. The market never sleeps; this is proven by the successful last expansion of Destiny2.

In order to stay in the lead in the long term, important upgrades are needed in the next few days. Despite the difficult launch, the Korean game has achieved very high player numbers on Steam alone, and the numbers of console players are still missing. And our test also shows The First Descendant some strengths that give hope.


Source: Nexon



Does Karel want to become God?

Stories in such loot shooters are often not the focus, but exceptions prove the rule. The Destiny series, for example, is largely convincing in terms of lore, but there are always some glitches in the storytelling. The story of our selectable Descendantswhich in German are simply called descendants, is not exactly boring, but is also not completely convincing in The First Descendant.

Basically, a typical good versus evil plot develops: the continent of Ingris is about to be invaded by the so-called Vulgus. At their head is the arch-villain Karel. After a tutorial, we meet the leader for the first time in a sequence in which he shows us what kind of bad guy he wants to become.

There are three so-called iron hearts on the continent, one is owned by Karel, the other two we have to find during the game so as not to endanger the dimensional wall. After all, the villain wants to reduce Ingris to rubble and ashes.

As the story progresses, his followers keep getting in our way. But the story doesn't really have much depth. At least a few interesting characters, such as the artificial intelligence called Guide and the unsympathetic Jeremy, add a little spice to the story.



Three figures stand on a defeated colossus

Source: Nexon Games



Battle of the Elements

While the story continues to progress at the same pace, the Descendants at least bring a lot of variety to the gameplay. In The First Descendant, we choose one of a total of 19 descendants – including the stronger Ultimate versions of Lepic, Ajax, Viessa, Bunny and Gley.

But even without the special characters, the selection is large. The 14 Descendants differ quite a bit from one another due to their various abilities. For example, we have the three starting characters: Viessa can slow down and freeze enemies with her ice attacks, Lepic has grenades to deal extra damage, and Ajax places barriers to protect team members and himself.

However, it will take several hours of gameplay before we can unlock more descendants. First, we have to work our way through the story. If we complete tasks, we will gradually receive items for new descendants. The change works smoothly via the menu. We can also switch back to the old character at any time.