The First Descendant Season 1 questline walkthrough: How to unlock Invasion Dungeons

The First Descendant's Season 1 update extends its main questline, and you have to complete all the new missions to unlock the new seasonal mechanics. The total number of objectives is over a dozen, but you can run through the Season 1 questline all within an hour if you're efficient. The missions are meant to tutorialize the new pressure-plate Invasion mechanics that can be confusing the first time around.

This article outlines all the objectives added in The First Descendant Season 1 and simplifies the more tricky tasks that the game does not explain completely.

How to start The First Descendant Season 1 questline and unlock seasonal mechanics

To begin the Season 1 questline in The First Descendant, make sure you've beaten the main campaign of the game to unlock Hard Mode. At this point, a new questline should start with the objective Fallen Teammates.

After a briefing at the HQ, you need to do the Block Kuiper Mining Special Operation in White-Night Gulch and beat the first six waves. Make sure you have a party with mobbing experts like Valby, Bunny, or Jayber.

Even if you don't have an organized party, you'll still get lucky with public matchmaking more often than not.

This is what you gotta do (Image via Nexon)

To start Fallen Teammates, go to the special operation terminal (Golden Globe near Albion's first spawn location), and select the Operation from White-Night Gulch.

Extract after completing the sixth wave. Afterwards, the following objectives appear sequentially:

What The Destruction Left Behind: Talk to Guide in Albion
Inversion Circulation Device: Initiate Old Mystery, Hagios (Hard Infiltration Operation) to get an Ancient Metal
Technology and Power: Talk to Guide in Albion
Necessary Evil: Talk to Kyle in Albion, then to Luna
A Measure to Enhance The Descendant's Capabilities: Talk to Commander Alpha
Altered Design: Talk to Anais in Albion
Inversion Reinforcement Device: You can now access Inversion Reinforcement in your inventory. Talk to Anais to continue the quest.
Isolated Descendant in The Snowfield: Talk to Commander Alpha. After the Hailey Rescue Operation objective comes online, talk to him again to access the new "Move to The Quarantine Zone Immediately" option.

Inversion Reinforcement is unlocked now (Image via Nexon)

Also Read: The First Descendant character tier list

Hailey Rescue Operation mechanics explained

The Hailey Rescue Operation mission is where things get tricky, as the new seasonal mechanics are introduced. An energy barrier will block your way to the next room after you spawn. The key is to look at the colors marked on the barrier itself.

The pattern on the door changes with each room that inherits this puzzle. However, the mechanics remain the same — if you can beat one, you can beat them all. During this Rescue Hailey operation, there will be two puzzle rooms, and a boss arena. This mission structure is consistent with all the Invasion Dungeons you'll be facing afterwards.

Grapple hook to get on the floating disc that the objective point initially marks. This not only gives you a vantage point of one of the rooms but also lights up all the colors of the pressure plates and keeps them lit for as long as you're standing here. Locate the pressure plates throughout the room, and identify the ones with the same colors as the door. You have to stand on a pressure plate till the yellow bar around it fills up to activate it.

Wait for the circle to fill up (Image via Nexon)

In short, you have to keep all three pressure plates of the designated color active at the same time. The door automatically unlocks if you meet this requirement. However, a number of enemies will spawn (with red objective marks on top) that can deactivate a pressure plate and even reset its color by standing on it. Make sure you take care of these monsters as soon as they spawn.

In this dungeon's boss room, you'll have to eliminate Ledras. This mechanic is much simpler. Identify the color of his bubble and stand on the pressure plate of the same color and shoot at him to damage his bubble.

Once his shield pops, you can damage him without standing on the plate. However, note the yellow bar under his health bar that depletes slowly. If this reaches zero, he'll regain his shield, and you'll have to pop it one more time to continue. Note that these tactics and gimmicks return in some of the Invasion Dungeon puzzles you'll do later on in The First Descendant.

If the bubble is red, stand on the red plate (Image via Nexon)

Completing this objective gives you a free Crystallization Catalyst. The questline then continues as follows:

New Recruit to The Descendant Corps: Talk to Hailey in Albion
A Clue from The Containment Zone: Talk to Nell in HQ
A New Encryption Scheme: Complete any Vulgus Outpost activity in Hard Mode to obtain an Ironheart Particle. Do this activity 5 times to beat the objective.
Information Revealed: Return to Albion HQ, where a hologram of General Amon will intercept Vulgus comms. Interact with the console to learn the intel, then talk to Alpha to complete the "Ingris on the Brink of War" Objective.
Afterwards, talk to Guide to continue the "How to Hide The Truth" objective, which tasks you with completing your first-ever Invasion dungeon.

With this, you'll have unlocked Invasion Dungeons, the headliner seasonal activity for The First Descendant Season 1.

Check out our other guides on the game:

Edited by Sambit Pal