The First Descendant devs explain why they won't make risqué male cosmetics

Modified Jan 07, 2025 20:49 IST

the first descendant developers nexon dont find male cosmetics worth it — The man-buns aren't getting colored anytime soon (Image via Nexon)

The First Descendant's milieu in the looter-shooter genre is very well-known at this point. If you're not familiar with what this recent Nexon live-service game is all about, here's a tidbit that may suggest its unique appeal: the headliner feature of the upcoming Season 3 is proper "jiggle physics".

It is reductive to say that this push represents the entirety of its currently dwindling player base. Yet, it's also oblivious to deny that The First Descendant's risque character design is part of its core identity. As it turns out, though, Nexon will only butter one side of the bread with such character design.

Note: Parts of this article are based on the author's opinion.

Why The First Descendant's male-gaze cosmetics will never get hit with Inversion Reinforcement

The developers explained their candid reasoning in a public QnA (Image via Nexon/Discord)

The First Descendant falls prey to the typical chainmail bikini trope: revealing clothing for women and "rule of cool" get-up for men. To give the game some credit, this disparity is at times quite impalpable with the non-Ultimate vanilla clothing on the regular Descendants (if you ignore the ubiquitous high heels).

When it comes to cosmetics, though, the male-gaze dynamic comes into play big-time. Male Descendants get various plated or rubberized combat suits, or otherwise purely sartorial upgrades, whereas the women are draped in leotards. In some remote cases, it is possible for the ladies to get practical armor, but the gents of Albion are not going to get suggestive cosmetics in the same way. This is not on principle, but because they don't make money for Nexon.

The developers confirmed this in a QnA session on the official Discord a few weeks ago. When asked about the possibility of less-armored or more-revealing male skins, they responded:

"The direction for creating basic skins is primarily determined based on past popularity and sales data. This might not be the answer you were hoping for, but highly revealing male character skins are not currently under consideration."

This is not all. As the less financially performant denizens of The First Descendant, male Descendants are the second-class citizens of design priority. All the male NPCs and Descendants have the exact same body morphology. Under the suit of armor, Ajax the tank has the same musculature as Yujin the healer.

This was also true of female Descendants, until some additional assets were bolted on to Hailey in The First Descendent before her introduction in Season 1. The gents are not getting the same consideration at least anytime soon. Responding to a request for "much more muscular" male Descendants in the same QnA, the devs said:

"...Emphasizing differences in male character body types and individuality is desirable but honestly lower on the priority list (based on revenue). The popularity of male descendant skins leans heavily towards the “cool” category (for lack of a better term), so we will likely continue to focus on this aspect moving forward."

The closest the developers have gone to "revealing" male skins is on the time-limited summer-themed cosmetics collection where Midsummer Midas-esque beachwear was usable on all male Descendants.

Nexon previously considered the idea of a market niche for titillating male cosmetics with various jockstraps and thongs equippable on male morphs in Vindictus, their decade-old MMORPG. The sales figures on those remain unknown, but they clearly do not set a good precedent for Nexon to entertain the idea in The First Descendant, their latest vessel for racy MTX.

In fact, male cosmetics generally don't sell as well as the bread-and-butter chainmail bikinis of The First Descendant. Some argue that this is because female characters (Bunny, Gley, Freyna, et al.) are at the top of the meta for both mobbing and bossing, so it's natural for players to stick to them and purchase cosmetics for them. The developers find this argument to have no factual basis, saying:

"Honestly, popular metas and skin sales haven’t always correlated. Even when Lepic was the most popular meta in VIB, skin preferences heavily favored other female Descendants."

Microtransactions are the lifeblood of The First Descendant as a free-to-play game. Naturally, Nexon will continue to shell out cosmetics the demographic (at least the majority) responds well to. Like it or hate it, the pin-up model blueprint is sealed, signed, and delivered by quarterly revenues, and there's little possibility of male characters in The First Descendant ever being cast in that mould.

Check out our other guides on the game:

Edited by Angad Sharma