Free-to-play action RPG The First Descendant delayed into 2024

Nexon has announced that its upcoming free-to-play action-RPG, The First Descendant, has been delayed into 2024 so the team can implement changes based on player feedback.

Tom West

Published 15 Nov 2023

The First Descendant's recent cross-play open beta saw almost two million players jump in to try the upcoming free-to-play looter shooter. Due to player feedback, Nexon has pushed its Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One release date into 2024 so it can work on implementing the changes requested by the community.

We're yet to find out a specific release date for The First Descendant, but Nexon says that it received an "incredible amount of feedback from players," which it wants to action with the additional development time. Some of the changes it'll be making to the game from your feedback include improvements to the ammunition system, a clearer UI, additional content in the fields, further optimized graphics, more mission variety, and more.

"There are many more development matters that I'd like to talk about, but for today, I'll conclude with my thoughts on the future development directions of the game. I believe that for looter shooters as a genre, growth elements, motivation to play, and ease of play over a long play time are more important than anything else," The First Descendant's producer, Lee Beom-jun said. "Therefore, the dev team has been focusing on strengthening the growth elements to enhance the inherent fun of the looter shooter, buffing content that allows players to use a variety of characters, and improving the UI and UX to ensure that players aren't frustrated by repetitive gameplay. Even after the release, we'll continue to address any shortcomings, and keep updating content for our Descendants to enjoy."

Last month, we had a chance to ask Nexon about its looter shooter in our The First Descendant Q+A, and discussed the team's motivations behind bringing the Unreal Engine 5-developed game to Xbox One alongside current-gen consoles, the class system, and more. Additionally, Nexon confirmed that The First Descendant achievements will be added with each "major update."

If you're looking for a fun game to play without spending your hard-earned cash now, check out our list of the best free-to-play games on Xbox!

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Written by Tom West

Tom has been playing video games since he was old enough to hold a controller, experimenting with a number of systems until he eventually fell in love with Xbox. With a passion for the platform, he decided to make a career out of it, and now happily spends his days writing about that which he loves. If he’s not hunting for Xbox achievements, you’ll likely find him somewhere in The Elder Scrolls Online or fighting for survival in Battlefield.