UPDATED Review for June 2025 ( A lot of QoL changes have happened in the almost One Year since release)

The First Descendant is a Looter Shooter game, with the focus currently being on Skill Based Damage Dealers and a little less on the Gun Based Descendants.

IMPORTANT Points to Note :
1) There are NO Pay to Win Elements !
2) There are NO Gacha Elements, no loot boxes etc. !
3) Game is Completely FREE TO PLAY, i.e no content locked behind a paywall. Skins are Optional Purchases.
(A skin will cost you the equivalent of $15. Some of these are common, i.e you can use them for all Descendants of the same Sex. There are some Premium Skins which cost the equivalent of $20 and once a season they have an Evolving Skin for a particular Descendant that can cost even more (i think $40, never bought any).)
3) Battle Pass is seasonal. Cost $10 and you get $6 back (in in-game currency) if you complete it. There is one Exclusive Weapon included in it. We need 5 Copies of the gun to fully Enhance it. 3 Copies are available on the free track of the Battle Pass and 2 are on the Premium track. However you can farm the remaining 2 copies in game after a Season Gap. Meaning Season 1 BP Gun can be farmed in Season 3, etc.

PROS
+ Great Looking Game with a lot of different Descendants (19 different ones excluding Ultimate Variants (28 in total)
+ Lots of Build variety and how you play.
+ Lots of Systems to Build, upgrade, Enhance etc.
+ Can be played completely Solo.
+ RNG has been greatly reduced with recent updates and even Ultimate Descendants can be farmed relatively easily if you know what to do.
+ Graphically Game looks great and runs well most of the time (some minor issues which i will cover in the cons).
+ Story has greatly improved, especially the Descendant exclusive quests (backstories)
+ A lot of interesting Weapons (However currently Skill dealers are meta and a few guns are enough).
+ Lots of customisation options for skins, like painting etc. (if you enjoy that in games).
+ Photo mode has been added as well.

Cons
- Gets repetitive if you play a lot. Currently not a lot of new content is being added as the Devs are focusing on a big Revamp in August, adding a Big Open World Map, new game mechanics, descendants etc. A New vehicle too.
- Currently Co-op play isn't rewarding. The content revolves around farming and upgrading Descendants, Guns, Components etc. which means running everything very fast to get drops. And with fully built descendants missions can be a breeze.
- While game looks great graphically, a bit more tweaking is required. There is a blurriness in the picture which requires playing around with the Sharpness, Contrast etc. to get it just right (probably a UE5 issue). Improved a lot but needs tinkering.
- Can be a bit overwhelming at the start for New Players (Tip : Just focus on finishing the campaign before farming or thinking about upgrading).

Overall I have had a great time with The First Descendant. One of the Best things about this game are the Devs. Super responsive, super communicative. They have weekly patches and updates and they do a monthly Live Stream going over the plans for the future and addressing issues. They also do occasional Discord Q & As to get feedback.

After listening to a lot of feedback they decided to add more Substantial updates per Season. As a result they focused fully on delivering a big Expansion for the Summer and even hired more people to increase the scope of the game. Which is why there is a bit of a content drought for regular players currently.

Looter Shooters and games like this with a heavy focus on farming/grinding are a niche genre and as such the player base has struggled to increase as people want more content or don't enjoy repeating missions over and over to get rare drops. However unlike other live service games where the focus is on PvP it is difficult to make a lot of different content that is engaging without being repetitive.

My recommendation is to give this game a go as its completely free to play and has a lot of different characters and you may like one or the other due to playstyle or personality etc..
Once you have reached a level where you have a few fully built Descendants, Guns and you can clear most content comfortably then you can step back and keep this game in your rotation of games. Come back when you see a new season or update. Playing daily will burn you out. This may change with the new Big Revamp but either way the game can be played Casually or you can get sweaty and Min-Max every descendant, weapon etc.

Overall I would say this is still a casual game at its core and if you play it like that you will have fun.
The negativity you see around this game is mostly overblown and this game doesn't deserve the nastiness you see online. A mixture of bad reputation of Nexon and career streamers who run out of content due to the excessive time they spend playing daily has resulted in overall mixed Reviews.

As you can see by the time i have played, I can still get 2-3 hours daily even though I have mostly done everything i wanted.

Btw for transparency I do make content for this game as well. Only videos though focusing on guides for newer or intermediate level players.
Here are a couple of videos if you want to see what I cover
1) Ultimate Freyna Build Guide : https://youtu.be/Fx1INGGpvcs
2) Serena Build Guide : https://youtu.be/gK3sH6iWCsk

Greedfall. Where do I begin with Greedfall. This is one of those games that people either love or hate. It does some things incredibly well and some very poorly. This game is in a fantasy New World setting (the term used to describe the Americas during the early 16th century when it was first discovered by Europeans).

This is a deep character driven RPG where dialogue plays a big part and being involved in the story is important as every side quest is very much connected to the whole story.

Pros

- Very detailed fantasy story with extremely developed characters all tied nicely to the bigger picture.
- Some of the best side quests I have played since the Witcher.
- Excellent voice acting. Maybe the best part of this game.
- Several factions and lot of flexibility in which ones to side with and how each choice affects the overall relationship with them.

Cons

- Animations are bad. Lip syncing is off, just looks janky.
- Lot of issues which can be put down to being developed by a small team like repeated interiors, empty town centres, npcs repeating the same 3 lines of dialogue every time they see you etc.
- Enemy AI is pretty lacklustre as well. You have to sometimes walk right up to them to "activate" them and then they start attacking you.

So did i like it ?
Yes, very much but I am well aware that this would not be most people's cup of tea. The best way I can describe is imagine watching a movie made in South Africa or something. Its in English, the accents are a little different and it may feel limited from a technical stand point but they do things differently. And you like it. That's how i felt with this game.

The setting plays a big part, the great voice acting, the in-depth quest design and the unusual fantasy setting all contribute to this. Just don't play this if you are going in for the combat or if you don't like listening to lengthy dialogue with a lot of political intrigue.

You are a diplomat and dealing with multiple different factions and managing your relationships with all of them is the main part of this game.

I had pre-ordered this game and no lifed it when it came out. All the 40 hours or so you see here were at launch inside a week after release. I haven't done this since for any other game.

Its hard for me to describe this game properly. Watching a bit of gameplay will help greatly.

If you want you can watch my stream soon after launch early in the game (after the prologue bit) to get an idea : https://youtu.be/jIOKgl9wPt8?t=42