The third-person looter shooter powered by Unreal Engine 5 is developed by NEXON Games. The game was released on 30th June 2024. While the game portrayed stunning visuals thanks to the Unreal Engine 5 but the game received several mixed reviews. The main culprit of the mixed reviews were repetitive grind and a shallow narrative.
“The player becomes a Descendant in the game and is given a mission to fight against the invaders for the survival of humans and to protect the ‘Ingris continent’. The player can experience a spectacular story by growing stronger through various missions and stories to finally discover the Descendants’ secret.”
Shooting for the Stars: Stellar Combat and Customization
The game offers a fluid combat which is responsive and satisfying. Your character will have wide arrays of guns and abilities. This allows you to customize your character according to your play style. The characters have unique skill sets, free movements, and chain actions through grappling hooks. With these skills you can fashionably ace any battleground.
The bosses are the true stars of the game. The enemies are towering giants with distinct attack styles. You need to read their attack move set and strategically use your weapon to take the enemy down. You can target huge boss monsters with different appearances and abilities through 4 player co-op play.
“The various difficulties will stimulate your competitive spirit, and you can destroy or extract various parts of the huge bosses through 4-player cooperative play. By targeting the huge boss’s gimmicks, you will be able to experience a more compact team play.”
Grinding Gears: Repetitive Missions and Inventory Management
The core game is enjoyable however at some point it becomes repetitive. The mission variety kind of trickle downs to kill everything and repeat. So, in the long term the engagement factor kind of dies out.
The missions usually fall under the same repetitive loop of going to a specific point and eliminate enemies. Moreover, the environment itself is vibrant and colorful but there is minimal interaction.
Moreover, looting enemies after taking them down is one of the core aspects of The First Descendant. However, managing inventory can become challenging. The limited space kind of forces you to constantly dismantle your gear to manage the weight. Of course, inventory expansion is protected by a paywall which can be quite frustrating.
Lost in Translation: A Shallow Story and
The narrative of the game is quite forgettable. Most gamers complained that the plot of the game feels shallow and somewhat not interesting at all. The story unfolds through various cutscenes that barely shapes out what is actually going on.
There is no clear background about why descendants are a thing or why they are doing what they are doing. Despite their cool design and fluid combat the characters lack personalities. Without proper character development the players cannot relate to the game. As a result, the gamers feel disconnected with the game.
F2P Monetization
Limited inventory space is one of the most significant pain points in the free-to-play model. It pushes players to buy inventory expansion to continue play the game without being frustrated. Many players complained that they feel this is intrusive and can be a barrier to many players. Secondly, the game also has cosmetic microtransaction which many players thinks is unnecessary.
Players compared how character enhancement in Warframe required 20 premium currency which comes to around $2. Whereas in The First Descendant the similar enhancement costs 1500 premium currency which is like $30.
Moreover, to unlock Ultimate Descendants players need rarer materials which can be tiresome due to repetitive grinding. It costs hefty amount to use premium currency to unlock the descendants right away. As a result, the developers received several backlashes. Nexon is offering 30% gold gain as a compensation.
Conclusion
The game is an impressive looter shooter game with amazing responsive combat. However, it can be frustrating with monotone repetitive missions. It makes the grinding process quite boring. Moreover, the monetization model is also quite concerning because the prices are crazy. Hopefully the developers will take these into account and fix these issues. If you are looking for a free-to-play shooter game with satisfying combat then you can definitely give it a shot.
