I bear in mind attempting out The First Descendant at Summer time Recreation Fest. As somebody who enjoys Warframe, I felt proper at dwelling in Ingris, as did over 260,000 gamers when the shooter first dropped. However Nexon hasn’t managed to retain quite a lot of these gamers post-launch, and whereas latest opinions are within the inexperienced, its lifetime Steam rating sits at 64%, or ‘Blended.’ Complaints cite points with aggressive monetization, the fixed addition of latest content material that feels onerous for the sake of being onerous, and a repetitive grind that always ends in disappointment as drop charges for essential supplies are low. In 2026, nonetheless, Nexon is taking purpose at quite a lot of these points, hoping to lure followers again to its sci-fi world.
In its December 2 devstream, Nexon confirms that the primary half of the 12 months will not embrace a Season 4 replace as anticipated, with the following chapter of the multiplayer sport‘s ongoing saga dropping in summer season 2026 as an alternative. Artistic director Min-Seok Joo says (by way of neighborhood supervisor Jason Lee’s translation) that “the primary half of 2026 will concentrate on reorganizing The First Descendant‘s core loop and strengthening its content material.
“Moderately than including extra content material on the present basis, we have determined it might be higher to speculate extra within the sport’s completion by way of reorganization earlier than transferring on to the following stage. Subsequently, we have determined to proceed with Season 3 through the first half of 2026. We consider time is required to regroup and achieve new momentum by reflecting on the previous.”
“The first objective is to reorganize the cycle of gameplay,” Min-seok continues. Episode 2 firstly of the 12 months will add the brand new Breach Monitoring farming exercise, permitting gamers to farm gold and super-conductive cooling items. With rotating mission sorts, the hope is Breach Monitoring helps lower down on a few of the sport’s present repetition.
In Episode 3, we’ll see the addition of the brand new Onslaught mode, the place gamers face off towards 4 waves of enemies, which get progressively harder. Enemies have elite results, and you may squad up in a bunch of 4 to try to take them down. This may occasionally ring alarm bells for some (The First Descendant’s greater tier bosses are constantly known as “bullet sponges” in detrimental opinions), however the crew plans to launch Onslaught in beta first to collect suggestions forward of its full launch in Might.
Nexon has additionally heard gamers’ complaints in regards to the sport’s farming loop, and can now provide the likelihood to decide on what you farm utilizing the Operation Command system. “We’re making ready a serious overhaul of the whole farming expertise throughout all issue ranges past onerous issue,” producer Beom-Jun Lee says. “Our concentrate on onerous issue and above stems from the judgement that, whereas new participant onboarding is essential, prioritizing the refinement of the expertise for our present gamers comes first.”
Maybe the most important new addition in Episode 3, nonetheless, is Dia, the much-requested Descendant. Making her debut in February 2026, she’ll have her personal distinctive storyline. Then, additional down the road, there is a new Mega Boss Dungeon centered round Karel’s story, extra large-scale fight missions, and a whole overhaul of the weapon system, which is in determined want of a rethink.
“The present weapon system, which entails analysis, readjusting, and augmentation cores feels monotonous to core gamers and can be troublesome for brand spanking new gamers,” Min-seok admits. “We’re making ready a brand new weapon system, and plan to launch Transcendent-tier weapons that may be loved primarily by way of farming, and supply a distinct expertise from present development weapons.”
Earlier than all of this, nonetheless, there’s the First Descendant’s massive December replace, arriving on Thursday December 4. This provides the Final variant of medic Yujin, the brand new Forbidden Sanctuary dungeon, poison-based Abyss Colossus boss, Grim Reaper, and, lastly, rebalancing for numerous Descendants. You’ll be able to take a look at the entire data right here.
As somebody who did play fairly a little bit of The First Descendant at launch, it did battle with some fairly vital jank, and its techniques had nearly gacha sport ranges of complexity. I’ve performed loads of Warframe, and even I discovered TFD slightly onerous to familiarize yourself with.
We have seen a number of builders ditch a constant rollout of latest content material to actually drill into fixing their video games (Riot is doing simply that with League of Legends), and customarily I believe Nexon’s making the appropriate alternative right here. Throwing content material on the wall and hoping it sticks works generally, but when it does not, you solely exacerbate your present issues. Hopefully The First Descendant picks the appropriate battles coming into 2026.
