The First Descendant Is a Massive Hit Despite Its Various Controversies

The First Descendant has seen 10 million players in its first week of availability.

Nexon’s free-to-play looter shooter launched at the end of June and saw immediate popularity, with an impressive 264,860 peak concurrent players on Steam alone. (Microsoft and Sony do not make player numbers publicly available.)

Nexon has now confirmed the impressive total player count of 10 million in seven days. It said “we’ve reached” 10 million players, which suggests this figure relates to player accounts, rather than dormant downloads.

“Thank you all for your tremendous support and love,” Nexon continued. “It means everything to us. We will do our best to bring you great experiences. Can’t wait to continue this journey together!”

🎉 10 Million Descendants! 🎉

We’ve reached 10 million Descendants in just 7 days!
Thank you all for your tremendous support and love. It means everything to us.
We will do our best to bring you great experiences. Can’t wait to continue this journey together! pic.twitter.com/SsvcelMTsh

— The First Descendant (@FirstDescendant) July 12, 2024

The First Descendant is a massive hit already, but Nexon will be mindful of growing its player count as the game evolves, and we’ve seen how difficult this has become for so many publishers and developers who have entered the ultra competitive live service market in recent years.

While The First Descendant is clearly a hit it is not without controversy, and sits on a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam. Players have heavily criticized The First Descendant’s ultra aggressive monetization, which includes $100 character bundles and premium customization items that expire after use. Nexon was also accused of copying Destiny 2 icons for the icons used in The First Descendant, something the company has now said it will address in-game.

Generally speaking, The First Descendant is a mash-up of mechanics from various looter shooters already in the market. There’s more than a whiff of Destiny about The First Descendant’s design, systems, and mechanics, but then there’s also a lot of Warframe about it, too.

This week, Nexon released a significant update for The First Descendant that makes some big changes to the game, but leaves some aspects that had become a topic of discussion within the community well alone.

IGN’s The First Descendant review returned a 5/10. We said: “The First Descendant has all the building blocks of a fantastic looter shooter, but they’re buried under a pile of monotonous quests, a terrible story, and an infuriating free-to-play model that has influenced its game design in the worst possible way.”

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.