In The First Descendant, Nexon’s new heist shooter, each character has their own set of abilities and tricks. Bunny, the first one you can unlock, has to constantly move to charge up electricity, which he can then use to launch attacks. She deals more damage the faster she runs, so you barely fire the pistol and instead rely on her pulse ability for area of ​​effect. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the kind of playstyle the game supports. Run past enemies, through levels, away from your teammates – go fast and jump as much as you can to get to the good stuff. The problem is that there aren’t enough good things to justify spending time or money on the bad.
Looter shooters get a bad rap for being too rough, but when the main gameplay loop is satisfying, that’s not a problem. Unfortunately, The First Descendant’s missions are repetitive, its weapons lack any sense of uniqueness, its story is boring, and the Descendants themselves, while looking cool and different enough from each other, only have four abilities, each of which barely changes as you progress. It’s all well and good to create an overmatched build experience in the late game, but players need a reason to want to use those builds.
Every combat zone in the game has the same structure. You talk to the descendant stationed at the base, then you go and do some missions. These are all variations of killing enemies in an area, destroying generators, collecting orbs, or escorting payloads. It gets repetitive quickly, especially when you’re trying to rush to the endgame where all the best gear and builds are unlocked. This is a live services game, so things will change over time and more mission types and skills could be added, but these features are currently missing.
Even with repeated objectives, exciting combat can save such a game, but it quickly becomes boring. The scion’s abilities increase anyway, but all that seems to happen is that they do more damage or last a bit longer; there’s no tangible progression as the enemies also get stronger, so at best you’re a bit ahead and shoot through everything, you can clear missions faster, and at worst you have to retry one. Missions are challenging if you’re doing them solo, so teamwork is encouraged, but again the main difference here is the speed at which you churn out content.
It also doesn’t help that the weapons are indistinguishable from each other. Sure, pistols and sniper rifles fire slower than submachine guns and machine guns, but blast an enemy long enough and they’ll go down, so who cares what you use to do it?
The only way to feel any sense of progress is to unlock a new scion, but then you either have to grind specific missions and get materials to research them, or pay to unlock them immediately. Even if you enjoy the game loop, you have to wait a huge number of hours in real life to explore the weapons and scions you collect material for. The worst part is that the cost to speed up the timer is the same as buying Descendant outright in the first place, so if you’re going to skip the 16 hours it takes to explore, you might as well buy it and skip all the mission grinding too.
The lack of build variety caused by the four skills each offspring is locked to only adds to the feeling of stagnation. It’s a cruel design that encourages players to buy all the offspring to feel like they have access to some variety, but sexy characters in skimpy clothes sell. Spending a few quid on a new hero or skin is no big deal, but when they get boring after a day and you buy another one and then repeat the cycle, the money adds up quickly.
All of this would be annoying but passable if the story was compelling, but it isn’t. It’s your standard end-of-the-world fare. Humanity is at war with a race called the Vulgus, and their cutscenes are the most interesting aspect of the plot. Vulgus leaders have great character designs and different motivations, so the drama and spectacle they provide is great, but you only get one cutscene per combat zone, and that’s right at the end. Can you still notice the theme running throughout this game? The good bits only come after you plow through the repetitive stuff as quickly as possible.
By far the best part of First Offspring are the Colossi. These are giant robotic creatures that enter the world through some sort of dimensional wall – think of the kaiju in Pacific Rim. They are challenging, look incredible and require teamwork. More of these and fewer of the others would greatly improve the overall experience, but they’re only accessible after completing specific missions, further encouraging you to get to them in the base game.
The only thing that makes the grind bearable is playing with friends. Everything is so dead you can use autopilot while you chat. Unfortunately, the only thing this achieves is higher DPS and better coordination against some tough end-of-level bosses and Colossi. It also highlights a huge missed opportunity. Elemental skills and descendants do not mix at all. Why doesn’t Valby’s water skills make Bunny’s electricity do more damage or make Viessa’s ice powers freeze longer? Because then you would have to think rather than just rushing through everything as fast as you can. Hopefully this is something that will expand as development continues, as this could become a very interesting system that encourages teams to use different combinations of offspring.
Conclusion
Destiny is rough, but has an immensely satisfying gameplay loop and a rich story. Outriders doesn’t have the best plot or visuals, but each class has a wide range of abilities that synergize brilliantly, meaning each build is unique to how you want to play and worth the fight on its own. The First Descendant has exceptional Colossus battles, but everything leading up to them is so mind-numbingly tedious that they don’t justify the time or financial investment you’d have to make to enjoy them. It’s the gaming equivalent of playing with a fidget spinner during a Discord call – something to occupy your hands while you catch up. It’s a game designed for you to pay to skip, not to play, so what’s the point?