5 things you should know before you start The First Descendant

The First Descendant is a looter-shooter MMO that gained 200k live players on the day of its release. Developed by the makers of Blue Archive, it bundles the open areas of Destiny 2 with Warframe's time-honoured vertical progression system. However, the nature of this progression may seem somewhat confusing to someone not familiar with either of these inspirtory games.

To make things spicier, The First Descendant makes its own spins and alterations on the Warframe-Destiny formula. If you're new to these games, or eager to understand how you should approach the overwhelming feature-creep in the first few hours of the game, here are 5 things we wish we knew before we started playing The First Descendant.

5 things you need to know before playing The First Descendant

1) Abilities from different Descendants may synergize in many ways

The first Descendant has specific classes with four fixed abilities that dictate their playstyle. You will, for example, have three starter classes you can pick from: a tank, a nuker, and a crowd-control specialist. The point, however, is that a balanced squad of all three is much more impactful than each of them individually.

Some Descendant synergies are fairly obvious, some less so. For example, Valby's water abilities make enemies weaker to Electricity, letting Bunny do more sustained ability DPS than she otherwise would. If you're playing The First Descendant with friends, it may be worthwhile to discuss what synergies you can comb together.

If you want to know more about the characters, check out our detailed The First Descendant class list.

2) Master the grappling hook

Get a hang of the grappling hook (Image via NEXON)

This 360-degree swinging gizmo can attach anywhere, even to bosses. Use it to zip around, change direction mid-air, and rule over the whole map. Initially, getting a hang of the Grappling hook can be a little hard, but you will soon master the gadget with enough practice.

If you have played the Batman Arkham games, then the grappling hook won’t be too unfamiliar because it functions almost the same as the Dark Knight's gadget.

Once you get the four-way grapple, it opens up even more exploration possibilities. You can travel much more freely using it. Thanks to player feedback during the beta, characters now climb and vault with ease. Now, you can focus on the action instead of worrying about making precise jumps or awkwardly trying to scale the difficult terrain.

3) Get Bunny as soon as you can

Smoother and improved movement compared to the beta (Image via NEXON)

The three starter classes you get in The First Descendant are all good in their own way. However, none of them are as good at clearing through the early-game as Bunny, the most popular Descendant by far. She won't be your sole crutch you can beat late-game content with, but she makes the road to their easier and lightning-fast.

To add to the early-game supremacy of this speedster, she is very easy to get an hour into the game. The First Descendant practically railroads you into getting her parts and crafting her.

Also Read: How to complete Bunny personal quest 'Follow Their Traces'

4) You can learn the drop source for almost everything from the 'Access Info' menu

One wiki to rule them all (Image via Nexon)

Once you have beaten the tutorial and made it to Albion, the game throws a large amount of mechanics at you. There are many things to farm and beat in The First Descendant, and unlocking new stuff is the way to progress.

If there is a specific Descendant or Ultimate weapon you want, though, you can learn a lot about it without resorting to third-party resources. The tool is right here at your fingertips - all you have to do is Open the Quest menu (default keybind on PC is J) and head over to the 'Access Info' tab.

Here you can find info on various types of Modules, Descendants, equipment, and how to farm these in the game.

5) Switch weapons often, but don't forget to put on modules

A plethora of skins will be available (Image via NEXON)

The First Descendant follows the Borderlands formula of damage where a common weapon of lvl 14 will be significantly better at a purple-rarity weapon of lvl 12. Weapon levels are separate from Weapon Proficiency in The First Descendant, and unless you have come across an ultimate, you are better off changing them as often as you can.

Unless you get an Ultimate weapon, the general fate of a weapon is to be dismantled in The First Descendant.

You'll also get Modules that you can slot into your weapons and Descendant. Early on in the game, you won't get the chance to upgrade Modules, and thus they may seem very slim in terms of stat boost. But those minor numbers from several Modules can add up to a meaningful DPS increase on your gun.

Check out our other guides on The First Descendant:

Edited by Abu Amjad Khan