Free Steam game The First Descendant had a powerful launch, barrelling up the Steam charts to a peak of more than 264,000 concurrent players. Building on that initial impact can be tough, however, and while the game maintains a steady player base there’s still plenty of room for potential improvement. Fortunately, developer Nexon Games seems to have lots of ideas, as a comprehensive new community Q and A session answers some of the most pressing questions around what we can expect to see moving into Season 2.
The First Descendant Season 2 is set to arrive on Thursday December 5, and it’s looking like we can expect a fair amount of new content in the free Steam game. We’ll be getting two new playable Descendants – one male and one female – along with another addition to the roster of ultimate variants. Nexon is also working on a more general balance pass “to allow players to choose from a broader range of weapons and Descendants.”
Of course, there’s no point having more characters if you can’t make them look cool, and so Nexon confirms it’s working on offering additional appearance options such as alternate hairstyles. You’ll now be able to dye the default looks for your characters in Season 2, and dedicated spawns and back attachments are both being made into shared items for use across all your characters.
Season 2 will bring additional and more challenging endgame content featuring new boss types, but it will also make getting started easier for new players. The difficulty of early story missions is being lowered, and you’ll need to farm less to unlock both Enzo and Gley, making it easier for newcomers to start building out their roster of playable The First Descendant characters.
Perhaps one of the most welcome additions for Season 2 is a pity system for loot drops. Rather than boosting drop rates generally, a new ‘target reward’ mechanic will allow players to select a specific mission and earn guaranteed rewards after a set number of attempts. This should ensure that you’re not left wanting by a particularly cruel streak of bad luck.
Beyond the new season, Nexon says it’s “considering improving the grappling hook or introducing new default mobility skills or movement items in the medium-to-long term,” as it looks for ways to ensure all its cast have a chance of keeping up with the sheer pace of Bunny. There are also plans to ramp up combat density to make encounters more engaging, and to introduce more variety to boss attack patterns.
Not everything players have requested gets a definitive ‘yes,’ however. Nexon says there are no plans to add invincibility frames to the dodge roll, especially as enemy guided missiles have been made easier to avoid. The Invasion mode, which some players feel “doesn’t fit the looter-shooter genre,” also won’t be changing for the time being. Instead, Nexon is focusing on new content, although it notes that the team is expanding and will continue to work on “improving underutilized or less popular content.”
The team is also continuing to build on the story aspects. “We’ve noticed that many players resonate more with the personal drama of the Descendants than the overarching storyline,” Nexon comments, “so we plan to ensure that the main story also captures the Descendants’ narratives.” Don’t expect to see branching paths or story changes based on player choice, however.
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