The First Descendant Shows Signs of Recovery Despite Major Player Drop

NEXON's shooter The First Descendant is finally catching some breaks after a rough start. Recent updates have brought new life to the game, though it's still working to climb back from a steep player decline.

At GDC 2025, Executive Producer Beomjun Lee shared the game's journey in a candid talk called "Persevering Through a 57 Metacritic as a Live Service Game." The title alone hints at the uphill battle the team has faced.

"It was a privilege to present at GDC," Lee said. He walked fellow developers through the lessons his team learned and gave attendees a sneak peek at what's coming next for the game.

When The First Descendant launched back in July 2024, it pulled in an impressive 264,860 concurrent players on Steam. Fast forward to now, and their celebrated peak of 23,000 players – while showing recent growth – means they've kept just 9% of those initial players. That's quite a drop.

But give credit where it's due – things are looking up with the Season 2, Episode 2 "Beyond The Void" update in March. NEXON reports an 18% bump in new players and 25% more daily active users compared to previous updates. The game also cracked the top 20 globally for Steam revenue, landing at #17. This suggests that while there are fewer players overall, those who stuck around are pretty invested.

Players are connecting with the game's story and characters, with newcomer Serena and Season 2's Gley becoming fan favorites. The cinematics have been getting positive reviews from the community that remains active.

NEXON has rolled out some smart strategies to welcome both fresh faces and returning players. They've streamlined the onboarding process and created clearer paths for character growth. New additions like the "Sigma Sector" area and the "Arche Tuning System" have given the faithful community more to dig into.

Looking ahead, NEXON is gearing up for Season 3, dubbed "The Breakthrough." Coming this summer, this major update will expand the game in several exciting ways:

• A bigger world to explore

• Vehicles to get around faster

• Massive Colossus battles in open areas

• A new social space where players can hang out

For those who missed it, The First Descendant is a co-op action RPG shooter with slick Unreal Engine 5 graphics. Players team up in groups of four to take down alien baddies and tough bosses, earning better gear along the way.

While NEXON paints a rosy picture at GDC, its continued updates and improvements show they haven’t given up—especially in an era where other live-service titles like XDefiant, Suicide Squad Kill Justice League, and Multiversus have just stopped new content drop as their playerbase faded.