The First Descendant Launch Sees 200K+ Steam Players And Mixed Reviews, Largely Due To Performance And Failed Cash Shop Currency Delivery

It's launch day for Nexon's looter-shoooter The First Descendant and, right now, about 7 hours since launch at the time of this writing, the game as a ton of players on Steam. In fact, over 200K. That's pretty impressive and doesn't account for players on the PS4/5 or Xbox Series X|S/Xbox One.

With a pre-download offered and crossplay enabled from the start, The First Descendant managed to get out of the gate with most things working. Kind of nice to see given this era of "totally broken at launch" being somewhat standard. The PC version of the game seems to bear the brunt of most issues though. Shaders not completing their loading and disconnects are mentioned in more than a few of the title's already 4,000+ reviews.

The reviews currently sit at a "Mixed" rating. While many are subjective and compare The First Descendant to its logical competitors Warframe and Destiny 2 in good and bad ways, others do focus squarely on either performance issues or the game's cash shop. While you can earn Descendants through gameplay, some are unhappy with the cost for Ultimate Descendants if you opt to purchase them ($100), some of the other offerings in the cash shop, and the game's battle pass.

There's also an issue with people buying cash shop currency and getting charged but not getting the currency. This is an issue the team has addressed on their X account, promising both a fix and compensation for the delayed delivery. This issue literally just got marked as "Resolved" according to X as I was writing this piece.

We have identified an issue where there is a delay in the delivery of Caliber upon payment and Twitch Drops reward.

■ Found issue
- Delay upon Caliber delivery into inventory
- Delay in Twitch Drops reward

We are working swiftly to determine the cause and will implement a fix… pic.twitter.com/QbqNLXuXSp

— The First Descendant (@FirstDescendant) July 2, 2024

Will you be checking out The First Descendant? Let us know your early thoughts and anything we should make sure to scope out for our First Look video.

The team also released a launch showcase you can check out below.