In The First Descendant, Nexon’s new looter shooter, each character has her own set of abilities and gimmicks. Bunny, the first one you can unlock, must keep moving in order to charge up her electricity, which she can then use to fire attacks. She does more damage the faster she runs, so you’ll rarely fire your gun, relying instead on her area-effect pulse ability. It’s a perfect embodiment of the kind of playstyle the game encourages. Dash past enemies, through levels, away from your teammates — go fast and skip as much as possible to get to the good stuff. The problem is, there’s not enough good stuff to warrant wasting your time or money on the bad.
Looter shooters get a bad reputation for being too grindy, but when the core gameplay is satisfying, this isn’t a problem. Unfortunately, The First Descendant’s missions are repetitive, the weapons lack any sense of uniqueness, the story is bland, and the Descendants themselves, while cool-looking and distinct enough from one another, only have four abilities that barely change as you progress. It’s all well and good to build an experience around overpowered late-game builds, but players need to have a reason to want to use those builds.
Each combat zone in the game follows the same structure. You speak to a Descendant in an outpost, and then you go on a series of missions. These are all variations of killing enemies in an area, destroying generators, collecting orbs, or escorting a payload. It gets repetitive quickly, especially if you’re trying to push through to the endgame where all the best gear and builds are locked off. This is a live-service game, so things will change over time and more mission types and abilities may be added, but as it stands, these features are missing.
Even with repetitive objectives, exciting combat can save a game like this, but it gets boring fast. A Descendant’s abilities level up as they do, but all that seems to happen is that they do more damage or last a little longer; there’s no tangible progression as the enemies also get stronger, so at best you’re slightly ahead and can complete everything in one go, completing missions faster, and at worst you have to retry one. The missions are challenging when done solo, so teamwork is encouraged, but again, the main difference here is the speed at which you work through the content.
It doesn’t help that the weapons don’t feel any different. Sure, pistols and sniper rifles fire slower than SMGs and machine guns, but shoot an enemy long enough and they fall, so who cares what you use?
The only way to feel any sense of progression is to unlock a new Descendant, but then you have to grind specific missions and gather materials to research them, or pay to unlock them outright. Even if you enjoy the gameplay loop, you have to wait an outrageous number of real-world hours to research the weapons and Descendants you gather materials for. Worst of all, the price to speed up the timer is the same as buying the Descendant outright in the first place, so if you’re going to skip the 16 hours it takes to research them, you might as well just buy them and skip all the mission grinding too.
The lack of build diversity caused by the four skills each Descendant is locked into only reinforces that sense of stagnation. It’s a cruel design move that encourages players to buy every Descendant so they feel like they have access to some variety, but sells sexy characters in skimpy outfits. Spending a few quid on a new hero or skin is no big deal, but if they get boring after a day and you buy another one and repeat the cycle, the money quickly adds up.
This would all be annoying but tolerable if the story were engaging, but it isn’t. It’s your standard end-of-the-world fare. Humanity is at war with a race called the Vulgus, and their cutscenes are the most interesting aspect of the plot. The Vulgus leaders have great character designs and varying motivations, so the drama and spectacle they provide is great, but you only get one cutscene per battle zone, right at the end. Can you see the theme running through the entire game yet? The good bits come after you’ve run through the repetitive stuff as quickly as possible.
The best part of The First Descendant is the Colossi. These are giant, robotic creatures that enter the world through a sort of dimension wall – think of the kaiju from Pacific Rim. They’re challenging, look incredible, and require teamwork to take down. More of these and less of everything else would greatly improve the overall experience, but they’re only accessible once specific missions have been completed, further encouraging you to rush through the base game to reach them.
The only thing that makes the grind bearable is playing with friends. Everything is so mindless that you can go on autopilot while chatting. Unfortunately, the only thing this accomplishes is higher DPS and better coordination against some of the tough bosses and Colossi. It also highlights a huge wasted opportunity. Elemental abilities and Descendants don’t work together at all. Why doesn’t Valby’s water ability make Bunny’s electricity do more damage, or Viessa’s ice powers freeze longer? Because then you’d have to think instead of just rushing through everything as quickly as possible. Hopefully this is something that gets expanded upon as development continues, because it could be a really interesting system that encourages teams to use different combinations of Descendants.
Conclusion
Destiny is grindy, but it has a hugely satisfying gameplay loop and a rich story. Outriders doesn’t have the best plot or the best visuals, but each class has a wide variety of powers that work brilliantly together, meaning every build is unique to how you want to play and the fights are worth it for their own sake. The First Descendant has the standout Colossi fights, but everything leading up to them is so mind-numbingly dull that it doesn’t justify the time or money investment you’d have to spend to enjoy them. It’s the gaming equivalent of fidgeting with a fidget spinner during a Discord conversation – something to keep your hands busy while you catch up. It’s a game designed to make you pay to skip it, not play it, so what’s the point?