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The First Descendant had a lot in common with Marvel Rivals, and the most obvious similarity is the rather generous fan service. In fact, The First Descendant, presumably due to its revealing character models, was among the most successful games released in 2024. The First Descendant racked up more than 264,000 concurrent players on Steam alone, even with the absence of jiggle physics to complement the supple curves of its 3D polygons.
Several months later, however, the game has practically hit its lowest point in a rather dramatic nosedive. From 260k concurrent players and being a top seller, The First Descendant now struggles to break 10,000 players in Steam.
After losing 95 percent of its players in such a short window, the game simply couldn’t retain its players despite the beautiful character designs and well, appealing to its players’ primal instincts. Mind you, The First Descendant is a free game already, but the regular gamer still doesn’t want to touch it.
Turns out success in live service is more complicated than creating revealing skins, contrary to what Marvel Rivals reinforced. So now, The First Descendant has been marked off as a disappointment by its publisher despite the aggressive “sex sells” marketing strategy and its initial success.
What Went Wrong for The First Descendant?
Sadly for The First Descendent, and despite the decent initial impression, the game had problems that aren’t just skin-deep and can’t be fixed by revealing more revealing skins. For one, it tried to compete with Warframe— a live-service looter shooter that isn’t even struggling– to begin with.
Marvel Rivals stealing Overwatch 2 players, for example, worked well because the latter wasn’t doing so well and kept eroding the goodwill they established with the player base. That’s not the case with Warframe.
Even worse, The First Descendant copied Warframe‘s grindiest mechanics, old mission format, and even Warframe‘s notoriously steep learning curve. The only thing that could’ve won over Warframe players in The First Descendant was the more human character designs. Everything else was either similar or worse.
Speaking of worse, The First Descendant‘s monetization was rather steep and way too aggressive, with skins on the same pricing level as Diablo 4— a AAA RPG. At the same time, the customization was severely paywalled, so there goes one of the biggest endgame opportunities because the devs made customization inaccessible for the majority of people.
They Copied Warframe’s Mistakes & Made Them Worse
Copying trends is a safe way to make games these days, but it’s clear that The First Descendant couldn’t stand on its own two feet without borrowing core mechanics from Warframe or Destiny 2. So logically, those who don’t care about The First Descendant‘s fan service and character designs have no reason to play another Warframe or Destiny 2 reskin.
Where The First Descendant could’ve found its own niche and strengths would be in simplifying its mechanics and making them more accessible to the masses. Because the steep learning curve has always been Warframe‘s constant weakness. Turning The First Descendant into a more casual looter shooter would’ve worked better for retaining players.
Instead, a good example here is that the game copied Warframe‘s convoluted crafting system which required you to grind for several arbitrary components in several different places using an eyesore of a user interface for a low chance of getting the equivalent of a spring for a gun. That or you spend money for convenience, which isn’t preferable since the prices, again, are high.
That’s a lot of friction, even for a free game, and casual players– usually those attracted by free games, don’t like friction.
Fan Service is Just a Bandaid
These past few weeks it would also appear that The First Descendant‘s strategy to get its players back is to double down on the fan service. It’s adding even more bikinis, characters with weapons-grade cup sizes, and structurally unsound poses. You get the idea. In Season 3, The First Descendant is even going to add the much-requested jiggle physics for the bouncy feminine fat deposits on the female characters.
I’m not going to lie to you; I might cave and spend for them (begrudgingly). But even these won’t improve the game no matter how much I buy. They might help with short-term income, but ultimately, The First Descendant is a video game. It needs deeper, more engaging, and at the same time, more accessible gameplay. Or at least something to justify the steep monetization.
At the end of the day, The First Descendant needs more fun content– a gameplay loop that you won’t mind repeating again and again like Borderlands‘ Diablo-esque loot roulette or Warframe‘s Kuva, Tenet, or Incarnon weapons, something to chase instead of just grinding to max it out something for the sake of it. No bikinis, jiggle physics, or hot springs can do that for The First Descendant, because there are plenty of other places on the internet that offer the same sights– and with more personality.
