Today, publisher NEXON unveiled a new trailer for the latest Descendant joining The First Descendant’s roster later this week, on the 7th of August. Meet “Nell”, a young woman who has awakened to the powers of Descendancy and is now ready to show the Vulgus a thing or two about defence:
The First Descendant is a free-to-play looter shooter that is available on PC via Steam, Xbox Series, and PlayStation 5 consoles with full cross-save and crossplay support. It’s latest major Season update “Breathrough” is launching this week and below you’ll find a short write up on the latest season as we got to take a look at the coming update. Alternatively, you can also click here for more details on Breakthrough.
Over the weekend I had a chance to take a look at the coming Season 3 “Breakout” update for NEXON’s ‘The First Descendant’. This sneak preview I got to take part in had me load up a fully maxed out boosted account, complete with every Descendant leveled out, modules freely available, and costumes fully unlocked for me to muck about with. Now I would like to start off by saying that I’ve not played the game since the Closed Beta I took part in and a few hours of the game’s official launch so I can’t quite provide a comprehensive look at what I’ve experienced besides surface-level observations and maybe a bit too much time spent in the wardrobe. I’ve been meaning to get into the black hole of looter shooters that is The First Descendant, but until I do get that knowledge up, consider everything below to be a casual look over the coming update this week.
So, for starters, let’s look at Nell—the game’s latest playable Descendant. This young lady has moved on from being the game’s Kalina after awakening to the powers of being a Descendant and is what I can best describe as a support with some sub-DPS potential. Nell’s big thing is being able to weaken foes and boost weakness application damage for herself and her allies based on a couple of factors. Notably, you’ll be “Ecive Scanning” a bunch (the scan function that highlights weaknesses) to trigger additional effects for her skills. Ecive Scanning applies properties to the front row of the original scan including any targets that are within the player’s crosshair which Skill 1 “Breach Shards” take advantage of.
Skill 2 creates a black hole of sorts that inflicts debuffs that strengthen overtime as long as the targets are within. Skill 3 can vortex up a grid of enemies into a singular tile which works wonder with Skill 2. All though it is worth mentioning that Skill 2 requires a bit of precise aiming and you’ll need to make sure you’re targeting the floor over the enemy. Still, if you mess up, you can always recall it which subtracts from the cooldown period. Oh and, before I forget, Skill 3 explodes after some time, which is very useful!
Skill 4 automatically targets weaknesses for party members and the player alike and this period is extended as long as the target has been inflicted with Ecive Scan and the Nell player is spamming Breach Shards whenever they can. Other modules are available that change Nell into a more powerhouse style of player, but I didn’t quite get the chance to mess with that (and admittedly I think I’d need to learn more about that whole system first before I could really go into it).
Besides that, I really enjoyed playing as Nell. What sealed the deal was her fourth wall breaking idle animation, where she looks back at the player and nudges them to get on with the script. When I get back into the game, depending on her performance evaluations by the community, I think she’ll be a character I focus on unlocking sooner rather than later.
Next up on the list, we have the Axion Plains. This new region requires that the World Difficulty level be set to “Hard” and look, maybe it’s ‘cuz I stink, but goodness are missions difficult on this part of the rock. Sadly, I never managed to meet a soul during my playthrough to get a helping hand (the time I get to play games usually pits me in the dead of night and understandably, I’m the only night owl) but I did get to explore quite a bit of the Axion. And it’s all thanks to the new Hoverbike mechanic!
Right, so the Axion Plains are quite literally a giant rocky plain of nothingness. There are some underground installations here and there but other than that running around this place isn’t going to be very pleasant. And using “plains” as a noun here is rather misleading as there are no trees in sight. But anyway! You shouldn’t be running around because you have a Hoverbike to mess around with. Just like the Sparrow, your Hoverbike can boost and even do a bit of a jump if need be and you might have to jump about a bit to get around.
See, I can’t quite put my fingers on it, but the Hoverbike doesn’t exactly “float”. It looks like it does, but it doesn’t behave like something that floats. I frequently found myself getting stuck on the most random bits of collision here and there, but a quick jump usually got me out of those situations. When you’re not getting stuck or running into baddies that don’t care much for your ramming skills, the Hoverbike is quite smooth and you can put your skills to the test through various races that are available in the overworld.
The Axion Plains also features some dangerous overworld bosses in the form of these plated Spikers. Like the colossi, you’ll need to work with players to uncover weak points, break off their plated bits of armour, and strike fast and true to take down these missile-spamming jerks. This map also features specific Battlefield missions which feature even stronger enemies but have greater rewards as a result.
Lastly, with the bit of time I had left to preview this coming update, I put on the coming ‘Nier: Automata’ themed skins that were available to Nell. Just like every other available costume in the game, the 2B and A1 skins support just about every aspect of painting you can give each component, including the hairs. My account had just about every paint in the game and I had to pull myself away from this wardrobe because I likely would have spent hours just putting together a new look. But getting back on track, if you like Automata, this is a good skin set. Nell sports 2B’s outfit very well and I found that I actually liked A1’s hair style more with 2B’s alternative look.
I didn’t get to cover everything in this preview (especially the 8-player field intercept battles), but there’s quite a number of features, weapons, modules, the works coming in the next season to The First Descendant. Season 3 – Breakthrough will launch on the 7th of August. The First Descendant is a free-to-play looter shooter available on PC via Steam, Xbox Series, and PlayStation 5 consoles with full cross-save and crossplay support. ◼
