Nexon’s new game ‘First Descendant’ conducted a crossplay open beta test last September. The basic gameplay was well received, but some elements were pointed out as needing improvement. The development team said, “We will carefully review the valuable opinions provided by users.”
‘First Descendant’ is a route shooter (gun fighting RPG) game being developed by Nexon Games, and is scheduled to be released in major countries around the world on PC and console. Because it was developed with Unreal Engine 5, the graphics quality is top-notch. It was originally rare for a Korean game company to develop a route shooter game on this scale. Coincidentally, after Nexon’s ‘First Descendant’ was released, new major route shooter games such as Line Games’ ‘Quantum Knights’ and NCSoft’s LLL were released one after another.
‘First Descendant’ conducted a cross-play open beta test from September 19th to 26th. Through this test, 11 basic characters, more than 50 types of guns, and 3 types of fields were revealed. Compared to the last test, many things were at stake. The ‘Grappling Hook’ has been improved so that it can be used more diversely, and the feel of the gun’s hitting, handling, combat experience, interface, and character balance have been improved.
The test results are positive. Above all, the fact that a Korean game company developed a masterpiece route shooter game (gun fighting RPG) to this level was evaluated as encouraging. In particular, the response to graphics developed with Unreal Engine 5 was good. It is evaluated that the optimization problems that occurred in the first test have also been greatly improved. However, when users of different devices gathered on one server, the game was interrupted and the screen was torn. This is an issue that must be resolved before official release.
The ‘grappling hook’, one of the features of ‘First Descendant’, has also evolved a lot. In the field, it has become possible to use it as a movement technique, and in battle, it can be used to dodge in an emergency situation. Of course, it is expected that there will be many suggestions from users regarding the ‘grappling hook’ this time as well. Therefore, there is a possibility that ‘Grappling Hook’ will be further developed in the officially released version. The overall direction and flow of the tutorial was also very good.
There are also challenges that need to be solved in the future. In particular, raids are difficult to do alone, so you can enjoy them by forming a party with other users. However, in this test, it was difficult to enjoy the raid smoothly with the matchmaking function provided by the game. Even if it took time, it was an environment where you had to somehow find users you knew and enjoy the raid. This is a problem that may occur again even after official release, so the development team also needs to make improvements in this area.
The process of growing a character also needs some improvement. When performing main quests and sub-quests, you will mostly perform similar types of quests. Elements of repeating certain content are included in most RPGs, but there is a need to make the process a little less tedious.
Although there are some problems as mentioned, ‘First Descendant’ is a game that has the basics of a route shooter properly. The skeleton parts, such as basic game elements and graphics, were implemented very well. Therefore, if it is fleshed out well and expands in various directions, I think it can be a hit not only in Korea but also in major countries.
