Nexon’s looter shooter The First Descendant has launched, with a bit of a thud.
The official Twitter account for the game shared this message:
“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused during the opening day.
As a token of our apology, we have prepared compensation for you. We will continue to strive to provide a more stable service.”
They also link to their site, where they lay out the compensation they have prepared for their players. You can read their plans here, but of course, we know that most of you reading this don’t even know what this game is.
Nexon is one of several Korean game companies trying to break through to the global games market, after decades of success making games nearly exclusively to their domestic market. Krafton first made inroads in modern global console games with PUBG, and that’s been recently followed up by Round 8 Studios with Lies of P, and Shift Up with Stellar Blade.
Gamers with long memories may remember that Nexon published Cliffy B’s Lawbreakers, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex – First Assault Online, and were supposed to publish Titanfall Online. So they have been chasing this for longer than most gamers realize.
But recently, they have been making a lot of inroads, by both using their Dungeon & Fighter franchise, and acting as a publisher for other developers. Nexon published the not-indie game Dave the Diver, as well as another live service title, The Finals. DNF Duel and the upcoming The First Berserker: Khazan are both based on Dungeon & Fighter.
The First Descendant is a looter shooter on the free-to-play model. Players are comparing the game to Warframe, but not in a good way. We checked the game’s Steam reviews, and most players who dropped negative reviews share the sentiment that the biggest issue with the title now is the aggressive monetization.
Quoting Steam user FzySideup here:
“This game released with more real money purchasable items than actual gameplay mechanics. Interestingly enough I even bought the currency to buy the battle pass. Jokes on everyone, in-game currency that’s been purchased thus far isn’t being delivered to players! What a joke.”
But aside from that, The First Descendant also launched with multiple technical issues, such as frame drops for players who preloaded the game. Nexon is fortunate in that we are in the gaming era where a title like Cyberpunk 2077 can redeem itself after a terrible launch, but of course, first impressions count.
We are rooting for Korean game developers to make their mark in the industry, and we hope that Nexon can get it together. But for now, those curious may want to wait a while before they actually give this game a try, at least until they address these technical launch issues.
