I want to share my experience of playing The First Descendant for 100 hours as a Free to Play (F2P) player. I haven’t spent a single cent in their shop and have only used the player compensation xp boosts they provided during launch week. I think this game feels good as a free to play player, or someone willing to spend the same amount as a regular game launch – $40-$80. Here’s why

The First Descendant Microtransactions

There has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding The First Descendant and their microtransactions. Many people compare them to Warframe’s or flat out say it’s predatory.

If you’re new to The First Descendant and don’t understand why that’s important, I’ll tell you. This game sells all kinds of enhancement materials, XP boosts, characters, and more in their shop. This is part of their monetization strategy since they’re a free game. Instead of paying $40-$80 for a game, they hope to sell loot and cosmetics to ensure enough cash flow to continuously deliver updates to the game.

While this is not problematic in theory, some publishers, including Nexon are known for shady monetization practices. I do agree with the criticism that some of the prices are outrageous, and the best way to communicate this with Nexon is to NOT purchase them. HOWEVER, I’m writing this article to show that you can enjoy your time in this game and achieve a lot in 100 hours of free to play gaming.

I also want to mention that I wasn’t laser focused on being as efficient as possible. In fact, I played through most of the story and then restarted the campaign with someone else that just started. So you could definitely be further along, but my experience probably represents the average player.

Before we dive into my progress as a free to play player, if you DO plan to spend some money, you can support me as NEXON creator by clicking this link or search me up in game with the tag AbbyHour#9902, then click on Creator Details.

Unlocking Descendants

The First Descendant has 14 different descendants and 5 ultimate versions. In the shop, these descendants range from $6-$18, whereas their ultimate counterparts will run you $60-$100! The $100 bundles also come with other materials but that’s a hefty price for one character. However, you can farm all of them in the game for free. The ultimate versions will take you a lot longer unless you have amazing RNG.

In my 100 hours, I unlocked six descendants: Viessa (starting), Bunny, Freyna, Blair, Valby, and Enzo. Some of these are given to you pretty easily but I still found the process of farming for new descendants both fun and rewarding. Although the research times can be a bit of a pain, having other descendants to play and level up kept me engaged and entertained. 3 of these are max level and I’ve reset Valby by assigning a module slot. The leveling process didn’t feel too slow or tedious because I was always chasing other crafting items, weapons and enhancement materials. I did use the character and material boosts that Nexon provided as compensation for the server issues during the first week. I’m also at Master Rank 14 which is pretty comparable to others on my friends’ list.

Campaign and Hard Mode

I completed the campaign (twice really LOL), we reached hard mode and beat Hang Man, who is the level 95 boss on normal. We’ve tried the first hard mode boss a couple times and have gotten close but haven’t beaten him yet. I’m working on upgrading my modules and rerolling my weapons to boost my DPS. Each boss fight and new area in the game has been challenging and incredibly satisfying to beat and surpass as a F2P player. You can choose your own adventure in The First Descendant and power through the campaign to end game, or take your time farming new descendants. 

Modules and Mods

Another component to The First Descendant is kitting out your player with the best modules and upgrading them to the max. You can also expand you player’s mod capacity and lower different module slots based on the mod type. I think this will take the most time as a free to play player. To do this, I need to craft Energy Activators and Crystallization Catalysts which require a lot of resources that are difficult to get. Compared to buying them in the Store, it’s $24 for the Energy Activators, which expand the mod capacity of your descendant or weapon. And $6 for the Crystallization Catalysts that assign a mod type to a slot on your descendant or your weapon which lowers the mod cost.

You do get 2 Energy Activators for free from the game for finishing the campaign and beating Hang Man. I used these on my 2 favorite descendants, but I wish I used one on my favorite weapon. wHowever, sometimes that changes, so I guess we’re good. Just by playing and farming other things I’ve been able to make 3 crystallization catalysts but I haven’t used them yet.

Weapon Rerolls

Finally, now that we’re playing in Hard Mode, I’ve spent lots of my resources on rerolling weapons and enhancing modules.  While it’s easy to run out of materials, a bit of farming quickly replenished my stock. The resource you’ll be needing the most to enhance modules is Kuiper Shards, which they don’t sell in the shop. You can, however, get a 3 day Kuiper Shard booster for $1.80. This is the same for XP and Gold Boosters.

One of the reasons I like their microtransactions shop is because you get what you pay for. There are no loot boxes you have to gamble on. If you want a descendant, you can buy it. If you want a 3 day XP boost, you can buy it. And tbh, that’s kind of better than buying something I won’t even use.