The First Descendant Review Summary

Stunning visuals and fun builds shine, but excessive grinding, repetitive missions, and frequent crashes drag down the experience.

Graphics are highly praised: Players frequently commend the game's visual quality, including graphics, character models, and skill effects. The visuals are often described as beautiful, stunning, and excellent, contributing significantly to the overall positive experience.

Game is fun and enjoyable: A broad consensus indicates the game is fun, engaging, and addictive, with positive comments on overall gameplay quality. Players find it enjoyable both casually and with friends, making it a recommendable experience.

Diverse characters and builds: The variety of Descendants, each with unique abilities and playstyles, is a major positive point. Players enjoy experimenting with different characters and builds, which adds depth and replayability.

Good overall quality: Reviews indicate the game is well put together overall, with solid graphics, gameplay, and enjoyment. It is considered a good game worth trying.

Game improvements over time: Players acknowledge that the developers have consistently improved the game since launch, addressing feedback and adding new content. This ongoing support is appreciated and enhances the game's long-term appeal.

Excessive grinding required: The game demands heavy grinding for materials, items, and progression, with players describing it as ruthless and requiring a second life. This grind is compounded by low drop rates and repetitive activities, leading to burnout.

Repetitive missions and gameplay: Missions follow the same formula, often requiring replaying the same one 5-10 times, leading to monotony. Overall gameplay loops become repetitive early and worsen in endgame, reducing long-term engagement.

Performance and optimization issues: The game suffers from lag, FPS drops, and poor optimization, even on systems meeting minimum requirements. Server-side issues and rubber banding add to the instability, affecting gameplay quality.

Expensive microtransactions: The in-game shop is considered expensive, particularly for cosmetics and dyes, with some items requiring repeated purchases. This is seen as overly monetized and not player-friendly.

Lack of endgame content: After reaching endgame, players find a lack of meaningful content, with no solid gameplay loop or direction. The game quickly becomes boring once the main story and leveling are complete.

Looter shooter genre: The game is consistently described as a looter shooter with grinding, farming, and RNG-based progression, akin to Destiny and Warframe. Players run missions to collect loot and manage inventory.

Co-op and solo play: The game supports both cooperative and solo play, with co-op boss fights and PvE content. Players can enjoy most content solo or team up with others.

Unique character abilities: Characters, called Descendants, each have unique abilities, skills, and elemental attributes. This allows for diverse builds and playstyles, with some characters being more weapon-focused.

Free-to-play model: The game is free to play, and all content is obtainable without paying, except for cosmetics. Players can earn premium currency through trading and gameplay.

Third-person shooting and movement: Combat is third-person, featuring shooting and a grappling hook for traversal. Players face hordes of enemies and giant bosses.

Game suffers from instability and lag: A significant number of reviews report poor performance including lag, stutters, and FPS drops. These issues are mentioned frequently and are a major concern for many players.

Encourages trying the game: Many reviewers suggest giving the game a shot, emphasizing that it is free-to-play, so there is little risk in trying it. Some recommend ignoring negative reviews and forming your own opinion.

Recommended for looter shooter fans: Reviewers consistently recommend this game to fans of looter shooters, especially those who enjoy Warframe, Destiny 2, and The Division. They highlight the power fantasy and familiar gameplay loop.

Not recommended overall: A significant number of reviewers advise against the game, warning not to waste time or money on it. Some specifically say they cannot recommend it in its current state until developers make improvements.

Good for grinding enthusiasts: The game is recommended for players who enjoy grinding for achievements, equipment, or repetitive content. It offers long-term progression for those who like to sink hours into farming.

Best played with friends: Several reviewers recommend playing with friends or a group, noting that the co-op experience enhances enjoyment. Playing alone is less recommended.

Community fair range: $0.00 - $0.00.

Game completion: 100.0h.

Story completion: 15.0h.

Session length: 1.0h.

The First Descendant hooks players quickly with satisfying combat and progression, but the fun declines sharply after the first few hours due to repetitive missions, excessive grind, and dwindling content.

Warframe Veteran / Grind Enthusiast: Min-maxing builds, speedrunning, and efficient farming of gear and resources. Motivation: Deep build customization and satisfying progression through grinding and optimizing. Stance: buy.

Casual Solo Player: Solo, casual, not meta-driven, playing at own pace. Motivation: Relaxed, self-paced progression without pressure from other players. Stance: sale.

Aesthetics / Waifu Lover: Casual, fashion-focused, collecting and customizing characters. Motivation: Collecting and customizing visually appealing, sexualized characters. Stance: sale.

Across all hardware cohorts, players report significant performance issues including frequent crashes, frame drops, stuttering, and poor optimization, with even high-end systems experiencing instability.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: negative. Players on 8-11GB VRAM systems report frequent crashes, stuttering, and inconsistent frame rates, even on recommended setups.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM / 16-31GB RAM: negative. Players in this cohort experience crashes, heavy RT performance issues, and poor optimization, with some noting constant reboots.

Windows <8GB VRAM / <16GB RAM: negative. Low-spec players face severe performance problems including crashes, frame drops, and inability to launch or maintain stable gameplay.

Steam Deck: The game is effectively broken on Steam Deck due to anti-cheat incompatibility with Linux, frequent crashes, high battery drain, and a deliberate removal of previous Linux support. Users are unable to launch or play reliably without workarounds.

Linux and Proton: The game formerly ran via Proton on Linux, but a recent anti-cheat update (involving EAC and an additional kernel-level anti-cheat BlackCipher) broke compatibility entirely. Users report it no longer launches on Linux or Steam Deck, with only a complex launch-option workaround that may partially restore access. The consensus is strong that Linux support is currently non-functional, and the developer has shown no intent to re-enable it.

Monetization: The game uses a free-to-play model with aggressive monetization focused on overpriced cosmetics, pay-for-convenience mechanics (inventory slots, boosters), and a battle pass that many players find poor value or too expensive. However, the absence of true pay-to-win (all gameplay items are farmable) prevents a higher score. The combination of high cosmetic prices and artificial inconvenience pushes the monetization into the aggressive range.

External guides: The most frequent and impactful user complaints about the Wiki Tax center on the need for external build guides, system explanations, and quest navigation, categorizing the primary dependency as instructional (Tier 3). Secondary issues involve inventory management complexity and minor technical problems.

Comparisons to Warframe: Many reviewers compare the game to Warframe, with some preferring this game and others recommending Warframe instead. The comparison often focuses on grinding mechanics and overall experience.

Free-to-play model praised: The game offers a free-to-play experience with optional cosmetic purchases, and all content can be earned without spending money. However, some note that characters may not be free.

Battle passes available: The game features battle passes that are reasonably priced and offer rewards like skins and materials. Some mention that battle passes provide progression boosts, though one notes it's required for better drops.

Unreal Engine 5 usage: The game is built on Unreal Engine 5, with some noting high CPU usage. This technical detail is mentioned by multiple reviewers, indicating it's a notable aspect.

Generous free rewards: The game provides free items, skins, login rewards, and event bonuses. Daily logins are specifically mentioned as a way to earn free cosmetics and experience.