In spite of lukewarm reviews, Nexon's The First Descendant has blown all expectations out of the water since its release at the start of July. In fact, it hit ten million players in its first week with a 52% positive score in Steam reviews and earned a hearty 265,000 concurrent player peak days after launch. Almost one month later, however, The First Descendant has lost nearly 40% of its players on Steam.
nerf the best The First Descendant build, it's not hard to see why it has got off to such a strong start.
However, SteamDB's population tracker reveals that nearly 40% of the 260,000 players from launch have now dropped off. From Monday July 22 onwards, player numbers on Steam have remained around the 100,000 mark following a steady and continuous decrease since launch.
Though it is a sharp decline for a hot new co-op game, that's not to say that The First Descendant is necessarily struggling. In fact, this decrease puts The First Descendant in closer competition to its main inspiration, with Warframe typically seeing an average of around 80,000 to 100,000 loot-hungry players logging in each day. Going forward, this is likely to be where The First Descendant holds its ground, having quickly made a name for itself in the volatile live service looter genre.
The First Descendant has also had its fair share of controversy, from the Nexon responding to claims it "copied" Destiny 2, but its approach to live service and balancing has garnered among a typically insatiable crowd.
Who knows, if Nexon releases massive updates like Digital Extremes has with Warframe, it could see substantial growth over the following months – and even years – to potentially trump its strong launch period.
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