Why The First Descendant's recent Steam reviews are "Mostly Negative"

Modified Apr 14, 2025 19:21 IST

tfd steam review negative — Arche malfunction is outside the game now (Image via Steam || Nexon)

A cursory look at The First Descendant's Steam page right now paints a rather bleak picture. Its recent review score has dipped significantly below the middling consensus it generally had — sitting at only 34% positive feedback at the time of writing. For players who have taken a break from this slowly diminishing looter-shooter, the reason for this will not be obvious.

This is because rather than an overall rating on the state of the game, this dip appears to be specifically related to one Descendant getting nerfed.

What caused The First Descendant's recent Steam review score to plummet?

The First Descendant's negative reviews dilated right after a specific patch (Image via Steam)

If you look at the specific graph on The First Descendant's Steam reviews, the highest number of negative reactions are concentrated on April 3 and April 4, 2025. This is right after patch 1.2.13 was released, which nerfed Ines, one of the most popular mobbing characters in The First Descendant at the moment.

Read More: How to get Ines in The First Descendant

The Ines nerf came from all fronts: lower ability damage on Chain Lighting and Snare Hunter, and almost thrice the cooldown before the latter is up again. Crucially, though, they added a line-of-sight check to her mobbing.

Ines' Chain Lightning and Floating Lightning no longer attack targets that are blocked by terrain. If they come in contact with the terrain, they simply disperse. This specifically dissuades all attempts to trivialize Collosi mechanics by downing the boss while safely nested behind a wall.

However, it appears that the lengthened cooldown and line-of-sight check has drawn the ire of players who invested resources into min-maxing Ines.

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

It makes sense that there will be some outrage, given how Ines is one of the most popular characters, and also a new one to boot. Naturally, not many players would have seen the nerf coming, regardless of how Ines outperforms previously unbeaten mobbers like Freyna.

The people have spoken (Image via Steam)

A swarm of negative reviews left on April 3 and April 4 alone is skewing the recent metrics of The First Descendant, and most, if not all of these, can be traced back to the Ines nerf backlash.

It should also be noted that patch 1.2.13 also significantly buffs several underused characters: the big winners include Keelan, Ajax, and Jayber. You can find the full patch notes here.

Check out our other guides on the game:

About the author

Sambit Pal is an esports Journalist on Gaming and MMO at Sportskeeda. He has Master's degree in English Literature. In his spare time, he is an amateur sleuth trying to trace the Riven Mafia in Warframe, and a recovering Bethesda modding addict. He also secretly enjoys action Roguelites, a severe lack of gitting gud notwithstanding.

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Edited by Sambit Pal