The First Descendant is a solid shooter, but that might not be enough

It feels like it’s been a while since a game has truly shaken up the live-service “looter shooter” genre. Destiny and Warframe have been forces to be reckoned with for a decade, but few other attempts at the genre have had the same impact. Despite the fact that studios seem so eager to chase the trend, it’s a surprisingly stagnant genre.

That could change on July 2 with the release of The First Descendant. Well, maybe change is a strong word. Nexon’s latest doesn’t so much reinvent the looter shooter as it does peek over Destiny’s shoulder and brazenly copy its notes, right down to its enemy designs. It’s perhaps a little shameless, but is it fun? A demo I played at Summer Game Fest certainly kept me entertained with tight shooting and high-octane action. I’m just not sure that’ll be enough for it to break the mold right as Destiny 2 is at its peak. It’s an uphill battle for even the most polished shooter.

Breaking the mold

Before my hands-on demo, a long video presentation gave me a rundown of what to expect in The First Descendant. It was an exhaustive look at the game, including its characters, post-game activities, and more. I was immediately overwhelmed, but that’s how I’d feel if I got a rapid-fire rundown of Destiny 2 right now and I can navigate that game with ease. I’m sure The First Descendant will have clearer onboarding that makes it easy to jump into its various activities; that’s just a hard experience to demo in an hour.

Instead, I was thrown directly into the fire. After loading into a hub that looked quite a bit like Destiny 2‘s Tower, a developer put me in a dungeon for a mission full of enemies to shoot (I was supposed to try two dungeons during my demo, but a dead headset truncated my experience). I’ll give The First Descendant credit right off the bat: Its third-person shooting is about as fine-tuned as you could want. Within seconds, I was taking out hordes of enemies with precise, snappy shots. Dungeons throw dense packs of critters at