The new loot shooter “The First Descendant” is much more successful than the developers initially thought. There was a huge rush on Steam at the release. This has led to some problems. The lead designer has apologized and announced a hotfix.
How successful is The First Descendant on Steam?
- The loot shooter from Nexon started with nearly 150,000 players on Steam – on the first day this rose to almost 230,000.
- The rush has continued and has grown even larger over the weekend – the all-time high was reached on Saturday night with 248,149 concurrent users. Additionally, the game has also been released on PlayStation and Xbox.
- The developers apparently did not expect such a rush at all. But the demand for loot shooters is huge, especially after Anthem, Destiny 2, and The Division 2 prepared the stage.
So many real-money purchases that it caused problems
Here were the problems: In the game, there is the currency “Caliber” that can be purchased, and with which players can acquire items in the game’s cash shop. However, those who purchased “Caliber” at launch did not receive the currency.
The chief developer Lee Beom-hun apologizes for this and explains in a video (via youtube):
There are a number of things for which I have to apologize. First of all, there was a delay in the payment of Caliber from day one. The number of purchases was so high that the server was overloaded, causing a long delay in processing them. We should have prepared well in advance, but we are very sorry that we were not able to do so.
What other problems were there? The chief developer also addresses login issues. Microsoft Azure caused problems here:
Microsoft Azure was dealing with an urgent service outage, but there was an accident, which led to us having to conduct a major server inspection. The development team managed to resolve the issue by staying up all night, but I apologize again.
Well, it seems that such a surprise hit only brings problems and night shifts.
Hotfix coming to resolve problems
What’s next? The developer assures that a hotfix will be released that, among other things:
- addresses the performance issues on the PS5
- increases the stability of the client-server
- fixes some bugs
- makes the intro quieter, because: The sound when the Nexon logo appears is simply too loud
The First Descendant is currently a worthwhile detour for many as a free-to-play title and good enough that people do not immediately run away but stay in the game to see what awaits them. The shooter is currently being discussed controversially. We show you which character suits you: The First Descendant: Which character suits you best?
