The First Descendant is Nexon's free-to-play loot shooter, and it arrives July 2
No more teasers of trailers, and no more waiting: we're getting our hands on The First Descendant next month.
If you’ve been paying attention the loot shooter or Korean MMO scene recently, or really watched enough summer showcases, you’ll no doubt be very familiar with The First Descendant. Though the name may not immediately stand out, you’ll likely remember it when you see it.
The First Descendant is the free-to-play, third-person loot shooter from Nexon, effectively its answer to Destiny. The game has been in development for a little while now, and players event got to try it out as part of various beta tests.
Today, during Summer Game Fest’s opening ceremony, we got treated to a fresh new trailer for the co-op shooter, which finally confirmed a release date. The First Descendant arrives July 2 on PC (Steam), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
Nexon actually dropped a teaser for today's trailer last week, so it’s another SGF item we’ve known about ahead of time. The game is developed in Unreal Engine, and today’s trailer was made using the latest iteration of Unreal Engine 5. It serves as a nice showcase for the tech, using a mix of cinematics and gameplay.
Outside of looking very pretty and action-packed, the trailer also showed off new characters, as well as some new bosses that were not in the beta builds. Some of those will be available at launch, while others will arrive post-launch in free updates.
Considering that we’re under four weeks away from the big day, Nexon promised to reveal plenty more details about what players can expect at launch over the coming days. If you’re curious, you may want to wishlist the game on Steam or your favourite platform.
Connor and I played The First Descendant nearly two years ago. We sat down with Jim to tell him all about our experience. Spoilers: we weren’t particularly impressed with its mix of Anthem, Destiny and half-a-dozen other Korean MMO tropes. It doesn’t help that it has a generic name that makes it harder to quickly recall, or tell apart from the other (albeit Chinese) loot shooter set in a futuristic world.
Things could’ve changed significantly since, however, so we’re hopeful the final version is something that could shake up the stale loot shooter genre. Beta impressions from last year seem to be positive, too, so it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.