Interview: The First Descendant Director on the Issues with the Game And How They’re Fixing Them

The first descendant is a free, sci-fi predator shooter game full of fast-paced action, attractive characters and lots of explosions. Now, over a year since the game was released, I have had the opportunity to sit down with director Min Seok Joo, accompanied by producer Beom-Jun Lee, in Tokyo Game Show 2025, talking frankly about the games they are currently facing and their plans to overcome them.

To get started, we talk about character building diversity in the game. Although there are currently 20 characters in the game and can be equipped with dozens of modules that change statistics, all characters tend to be similarly built in the final game, and use the same small subset of modules throughout the lineup. “for The first descendant,,,,, [build diversity] Director Min Seok Joo began, “It’s one of the priorities we’re going to focus on. Players tend to focus on maximizing damage, so the build is pretty much the same – we do understand that this is something we need to work for them.”

“So, as we do understand this issue, we are actually trying to spend some time playing games to provide a more diverse build,” Min Seok Joo continued. “We believe that improving beyond modules is actually a starting point for providing a variety of different builds. So we are working to improve the balance [of them]- We do understand […] Only one or two of each character is really powerful [currently]. It is important to improve their balance so that we can give players more options when they play different characters. ”

Of course, this is not just a way to build a role with a module. In the current end game area, there are several characters on the Axis Plain that are largely unplayable – they just cause enough damage to enough targets quickly. Min Seok Joo and his team are already working on this issue. “We are offering monthly patches to balance each character’s skills and we’re actually seeing more characters used on the Axis Plain [because of this]- That’s where we continue to move forward. ” Min Seok Joo explained.

This is recently emerged through the remake of Luna and the release of her ultimate version. But she is far from the last one. Actually, another thing will happen in the upcoming October update: Kyle. He told me: “Even if Kyle isn’t his ultimate version yet, because his balance has been improved, he will show the Axe Plain.”

Other significant changes to the October update will be the ability to open amorphous materials in Albion and launch in large quantities. Although undeniable, this change has the side effects of effectively turning most Giant battles and void reactors into dead content. Min Seok Joo is aware of this and is passionate about explaining the development team’s thinking process and future plans. “So first, opening up amorphous material is actually one of the difficulties, and one of them is the difficulty of getting new players to really settle in the game. So, don’t let them open up [Amorphous Materials] After the Colossus, we will allow them to open [Albion]. ”

“So with this change, the contents of the Colossus battle and the void reactor will temporarily die –[…] But in reality, we separate the giant battles to improve them. It will be new content to be launched early next year. “We actually incorporate them into the improvements instead of solving void reactors separately,” Min Seok Joo continued. [pre-end game] area. So we are trying to rebalance them and readjust the void reactor in the context of the overall area. ”

Min Seok Joo then expanded the philosophy behind the upcoming “Season 0” content reform. “We realize this [the early zones] Actually, it’s actually very difficult for new players for hardcore players, but they’ve become a barrier for them because they need a lot of strength and skill, so they’re actually hard. We are actually driving hardcore and early areas of new players. So we are trying to improve this part – lower the barriers for new players and improve the excitement of hardcore players. ”

Focus on new player experiences, with recent advancements and enhanced road events, new players can skip season zone 0 and provide what they need for fast entry into doomsday content. Although widely welcomed, the team learned some important information about what new players want from the game. “Quantitically, we learned that there are a lot of new players who don’t want to skip this story – they don’t want to jump [over Season 0],” Min Seok Joo told me. “So, in the future, it’s very likely that we will no longer let users skip stories, but instead accelerate the progress of the story so that it will be more compressed – making it easier to catch up with it [to end game] Instead of skipping the story. ”

Keep moving forward, we talked about one of the more controversial changes in Season 3, which is now working on the Axis Plain. You can only target a loot box that randomly discards one of the items, rather than being able to target a specific drop. This can be very frustrating when the individual items you want don’t fall after many attempts.

“What we learned from the data is that the time spent using farming varies [previous version of the] Target setup system and axis plain descending system. “For some players, agriculture can only be completed in one day,” explained Min Seok Joo [with the Axion Plains drop system] It is to reduce the gap between the two. We are receiving feedback from people who have experienced both [good luck and bad]. […] Therefore, we have not decided on the exact method we want to use [going forward]but we can be sure that some players are really lucky, we are working hard to save them from it and have also determined the best amount of agriculture. ”

With the big problems facing the game, we turn to a smaller but lasting one: the restored relics. A popular weapon that, when modified at high fire speeds, causes the screen to shake continuously while shooting, often causing players to have a sports disease. Additionally, turning off screen shake in the options menu will not affect repaired relics. Asked if this would be resolved, Min Seok Joo said: “Well, for the restored relics, I think it might be better for us to come up with a smaller number of new weapons, rather than improving the weapon itself, it might be better for us to come up with a smaller number of new weapons [recoil-induced screen] Shaking, but less destructive, gives you more options, but I don’t think we’re going to fix the restored relic weapon itself. ”

For those who want to play The first descendant On the journey. However, producer Beom-Jun Lee did not ask this question. “Well, first of all, our game doesn’t officially support Steam Deck, it’s not enough to fully support the game,” Beom-Jun Lee began. “So of course, it would be nice if everything runs without problems, but our goal isn’t really to make everything run smoothly on the steam deck. […] That’s the current situation. There is no formal support, and no plans to change this in the near future. ”

To end the interview, I asked them how they view their relationship with their robbery shooting competitor Battleframe and Destiny 2– The answer surprised me. “Because as the gamer itself, there are not many options for other robbery shooters, we do play other robbery shooters. As new contestants in the genre, we are using [what we see in] These games.[…] We are working hard to strengthen ourselves and learn from these games and improve our games based on our experience [in those games]. ” said Min Seok Joo.

“The first descendant There are many other advantages over these games. For example, we offer all kinds of really cool characters, we also offer very fast, smooth action – so I think we can be different from these [other looter shooters]. “But when we compete, we develop this type together,” he concluded. ”

The first descendant Available PlayStation 5, Xbox series X/S and PC.