On June 30, 2024, The First Descendant was released on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X. The loot shooter appeared surprisingly stable and promised a long-term presence. It achieved positive ratings and good player numbers on Steam. After the loot shooter was initially criticized, many discovered that it had more to offer than expected. The free sci-fi shooter from Nexon was able to maintain a good number of players even in the month following its release. How will it fare in 2025?
Here’s what was special about The First Descendant:
- The shooter The First Descendant had a bad reputation at launch. Many dismissed the game as “cheap goods from Asia.” These games are often considered grindy and overly monetized for Western tastes. However, through word-of-mouth, The First Descendant turned into a surprising summer hit on Steam.
- Player numbers developed well, and the mood was solid a month after release: Even in August 2024, one month after launch, the game had a peak of 115,700 players on Steam.
- A journalist even corrected his previously harsh judgment of the shooter: He found the game to be much better than he thought at launch. He wrote that he was nearly obsessed with the search for loot. The First Descendant apparently benefited from Destiny 2’s decline, while Anthem and The Division had long been stagnant.
Player numbers eventually decline with some delay
Did the hype last? No, The First Descendant could not maintain its player base after a strong August, when Season 1 started, and a fairly decent September 2024.
About halfway through Season 1, it seems the air was out for The First Descendant. The Season 2 began only at the beginning of December, but from October the player numbers started to decline.
In October, the average number of players had fallen to 15,880 and 35,000 at peak. In November, the low point was reached: now there are about 10,000 players online on average on Steam.
The game had 5 bad months in which it lost players; only in December 2024 could it gain some players back, but that was not a lasting success. Season 2 started on December 5 and brought new Descendants into the shooter, but it couldn’t sustainably stop the downward trend.
19 out of 20 players who played The First Descendant at launch are gone in 2025
What’s the problem? The problem is the ongoing development beyond the initial first kick. The game loses motivation and pace at the endgame.
It seems intended that with a new season, players invest a lot of time into new characters to reach the level of the last character. But the question is, why should players repeatedly endure the lengthy ascent? This is what Paul Tassi asks on Forbes.
He judges: The First Descendant is not a bad game, but it hasn’t figured out how to keep players engaged and motivated long-term. The player numbers on Steam seem to agree with him.
The First Descendant has lost 96% of its players since its release—only one in twenty who played in July 2024 is still playing in January 2025. The replacement for The First Descendant seems to be, at the moment, the hero shooter Marvel Rivals: Marvel Rivals has over 400,000 daily players on Steam—Explains how it maintains that
