A month ago I was sitting in a boardroom at Summer Game Fest dealing with it The first descendant. I was eager to see how Nexon’s multiplayer looter shooter would shake up a space dominated by Warframe and fate 2. Before I could even begin, I was shown a long video presentation breaking down how the game works in exhaustive detail. I was instantly lost; I felt like I was reading nonsense. This confusion didn’t clear up when I was thrown into the center with no direction and had to be thrown into a dungeon by the nearby PR person like a lost sheep.
I came away from this experience appreciating its sharp shooting and character-driven gameplay, but I felt like I needed to see the game in context to really understand it. I wanted to know more about the world and its characters. I wanted to build a descendant from the ground up instead of being thrown into the center. I felt like I was doing him a disservice by judging him based on high-level activity I couldn’t hope to understand.
After finally starting to play from the beginning, I now realize that I got a pretty accurate slice of the entire game after all. The first descendant is an inscrutable lowdown shooter that still doesn’t make any sense to me after a few hours. My mistake was trying to put an ounce of critical thought into the game. In reality, I would have to literally turn off my entire brain to enjoy it.
Tune in and tune in
You’ve probably heard someone say—or even said it yourself—that they want to turn off their brain when they’re watching a movie or playing a game. This is a common refrain for people who view blockbusters as nothing more than a light escape from reality that can entertain for a few hours. I never related to that feeling. Even the most bombastic action movie can still be an enriching experience that stays with me. Why would I want to waste my precious time on this Earth just watching screaming noise go in one ear and out the other?
I can though I understand the desire for such an experience. Life is hard and explosions are cool. Why not escape from a terrifying news cycle every once in a while and slip into a coma? For those who actively want this experience, I have great news: The first descendant does not require players to use a single brain cell. In fact, it’s better not to.
When I load up, I’m quickly bombarded with nonsense. I won’t try to explain the setting of the narrative. After playing for a few days, I don’t understand a word of it. Charisma vacuum NPCs spend a lot of time monologuing about knowledge, but none of it sticks. I stare at my screen slack-jawed as proper nouns are thrown at me. I’m thrown in the deep end from the first minute and never sink. After an initial tutorial, I’m thrown into an MMO hub full of quest markers I don’t understand. I open a menu screen to see walls of text and numbers. There is no hope for me.
I’m sure developer Nexon understands how borderline pointless this all is, because they wasted no time in getting me into the action. I load onto a planet and start following a colored mission marker like a bull pouncing on a red cloth on instinct. A mission is activated directly in the world. Suddenly I’m shooting at a bunch of aliens. I don’t know what they are or why I do it. I just shoot them until they tell me that the mission is complete. Other missions have me standing around an inexplicable device for a while fending off aliens. I have no idea if these missions are related to the story in any way because I have no idea what the story is. All that matters is that I’m shooting aliens with a gun.
To the first descendantHonestly, the shooting is certainly tight. Each gun feels like it has real weight when you pull the trigger (PlayStation 5’s DualSense really sells the feeling). I feel power as I mow down waves of enemies. There’s also excellent sound design here that accentuates every shot, making my bullets feel truly deadly. It’s not as sharp as Fate 2, but I’m quickly going with the flow. Before I know it, I’m activating more missions so I can continue to empty my clip.
A certain appeal
There are other parts of the game here that tick the right boxes. I have a grappling hook that allows me to swing to ledges as I can Halo Infinite. I have a set of character-specific abilities to deepen the action, à la Overwatch. I start by playing as Ajax, a tough tank that can drop shields and smash enemies as one of fate 2The Titans of. All the time I get more and more weapons to experiment with. When I turn my brain off completely, everything feels great. At one point I realize that my jaw is literally hanging open. It’s as if I’ve lost all control of my body for a moment and fallen into a blissful state of non-existence; I’m functionally dead.
Every time I try to come back to life, it poses a serious threat to my enjoyment. I’m completely blown away by the amount of loot I can equip at once, most of which raise a stat I don’t understand by a meaningless number. I can really go small with my character build by equipping multiple mods on individual weapons. Instead, I just grab whatever is in my inventory and attach it to whatever equipment I have without even looking at it. I don’t notice a difference when I start shooting again, so I hardly have to think about it anymore. Another menu gives me a huge list of stats that are in no way tangible or even readable. None of that matters. As long as the numbers are big, I have to feel like I’m doing a good job.
I am getting this appeal. I was Fate player for several years, even during the narratively hollow moments of his initial campaign. There’s a thrill that comes from watching the numbers grow as I equip new gear. I have seen many people who love their time The first descendant so far, whether they’re just enjoying shooting it or staring at its characters (search X game and you’ll find many very strange posts). There’s clearly a primal joy here that resonates with a certain type of player. I can almost feel it as I sit on my couch and zone out as my DualSense rumble controller gives me positive support. I’m a treat-seeking dog.
My original intention was to write a full review of the The first descendant. I don’t think I can do that in good faith. A review would require me to put some critical thought into my playtime and think about what the work is trying to communicate and how well it achieves that. It would also require me to trade countless hours of my precious life when all I really want to do is play for 30 minutes here and there when I have to experience time travel. Sure, I could rack my brains and tell you how its lack of a coherent story saps all motivation out of it, criticize its incredibly crude microtransactions, or compare it to the countless games it takes notes from to create scientific ‘fun ” marauder shooter. But at some point it feels like overkill. Review The first descendant it would be like a fidget spinner review. It spins. What else do you want to know?
So if you’re the kind of person who says that art shouldn’t require mental strength, please feel free to reap what you’ve sown here. The first descendant is the bottom line of this line of thinking: an IV bag that delivers a steady dose of morphine. I will not judge anyone for hanging it on his arm; we all need something to get us through this life.
The first descendant is out now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC.
