“The First Descendant” isn’t a great game, but I love it

The First Descendant made such a bad first impression on me that I almost gave up after a few hours. It felt bland, repetitive, and a Warframe clone to the point of being hilarious.

Some streamer and YouTuber friends convinced me that I should keep going, and I kept going. Now I’ve clocked 70 hours in less than two weeks and uh, yeah, needless to say I changed my mind. Well, sort of.

The First Descendant is actually a kind of “in-between” game, as the kids say. Everything I said above East This is mostly true. This game is so similar to Warframe in terms of setup and systems that it’s ridiculous. The sci-fi world is pretty generic. The story is absurd. You’re repeating the same things over and over again, and most of the campaign is the equivalent of Destiny’s patrol missions.

That’s why it’s not a game I can recommend to most people. I can only explain why, despite all this, I I like this.

I can recommend The First Descendant if you:

• You’re interested in a game like Warframe, but find it intimidating to get started and want to jump into something similar.
• Take advantage of long and somewhat frustrating runs to get awesome drops like you might see in a Borderlands game or Diablo Uber Unique farms.
• You want to do something when there’s downtime in your other loot (Destiny) and you just want to turn off your brain.

It’s kind of all of the above for me, and as such there are many aspects of the game that I enjoy.

• I’m not the biggest fan of third-person shooters, but the combat here works for me. The weapons are nice, the enemy deaths are crisp, and all the skill sets I’ve played so far are fun (except Sharen, buff Sharen). The character design with waifu girls and generic guys is unremarkable, and you can love/hate that.
• You can ignore the microtransactions, as horrible as they are. Act like they don’t exist and you’ll still be able to earn characters, weapons, and power in meaningful ways. I haven’t encountered any “walls” that feel like they’re demanding payment after all this time.
• There are always so many things you can pursue as a goal to unlock at any given time. There’s essentially an infinite amount of stuff to do, and things feel rewarding when those efforts finally pay off, though yes, of course, there is some frustration with the RNG, as with any looter.
• You feel real, meaningful power gains as you progress. It’s a departure from current-era Destiny 2, with more defined difficulty gaps and smaller gains, mostly based on seasonal artifacts and the like. It’s much more like Diablo with big swings and power upgrades over time. It can taper off at max level 100, but you can keep upgrading with rare items and materials to increase your power capacity. Or you can… create another character. It’s fun.

I’m not going to justify the many negative aspects of The First Descendant, and there are many. But as a looter, there’s a loop here that really works and combined with solid gameplay, it’s more than enough to invest in. Plus, this isn’t Anthem, Avengers, or Suicide Squad where the game will be struggling on the brink of death the entire time, because it feels like this is something that will be around and supported for a while. The developers have already shown that they’re quick and responsive to player concerns.

So, don’t play, it’s free, might as well try. But yes, it’s not great at first, that’s true.

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