'No Staying Power' The First Descendant Receives Bad News from Nexon CEO

Nexon’s top leadership has shared some very discouraging news about the long-term health of The First Descendant. The looter shooter has been out for less than two years, but the publisher’s CEO is already discussing whether it met the company’s internal goals. While The First Descendant initially had a lot of momentum, the higher-ups are now being very open about its ability to retain an audience.

When The First Descendant first debuted in July 2024, it was positioned as a high-budget, free-to-play experience that combined tactical shooting with a deep equipment system. As a live-service title, it was built from the ground up to be a forever game that would receive constant updates to keep fans hooked on the grind. Nexon was hoping this would be a major pillar for their global business, standing alongside other massive multiplayer hits. In those early weeks, it certainly looked like Nexon had a winner on its hands, as thousands of players flocked to The First Descendant’s sci-fi world to explore its unique characters and fast-paced action.

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The First Descendant’s “Strong Launch” with Zero Staying Power

The mood shifted dramatically during a recent capital markets briefing where Nexon CEO Junghun Lee gave a brutally honest assessment of the studio’s recent performance. In this presentation, Lee admitted that “the product portfolio Nexon supports is too wide – too many projects running without a practical business case” and confessed that “Nexon has been too slow to make tough calls in an industry where the cost of indecision can be enormous.” Lee explicitly stated that The First Descendant shared the same fate as Dungeon & Fighter Mobile—both games had great starts but lacked “staying power.” Lee didn’t hold back, putting the game directly into a category titled “What Did Not Work” during the official presentation. Lee stated, “Let me start with an assessment of what didn’t work. Dungeon&Fighter Mobile launched with terrific momentum in 2024, then lost its way. The retention mechanics weren’t strong enough to hold players longterm. Same issue with The First Descendant: Strong launch, no staying power. These are design issues that are not fixed with a patch – they require structural changes to game mechanics.” He further explained that “a structure that fails to sustain motivation to play drains the fun and leads to user churn” and noted that “margins are shrinking and the pop we get from launching new titles doesn’t stick. We have to figure out why.”

The data backing these claims is stark, especially when looking at the Steam charts that track PC players. While the game pulled in a staggering 264,000 concurrent users at launch, Forbes reports that this number has plummeted by 96% over the last two years. The daily player peak has recently struggled to even hit 5,000 people, which is a tiny fraction of the crowd needed to sustain such a large live-service project. The social media buzz for The Last Descendant has also completely dried up, with Twitch viewership falling from 160,000 concurrent viewers during the launch window to a meager 200 today. Even the reviews reflect this downward trend, as the game sits with a “mixed” rating on Steam from over 110,000 reviews and a score of just 56 on OpenCritic.

One of the biggest hurdles cited by both players and critics was the punishing nature of the game’s core systems. While the initial looting loop was fun enough to sink hundreds of hours into, the grind for new characters eventually became tedious for long-term players. Once a player reached a certain point, the wall to progress further felt too high, causing many to simply give up. To combat this, Nexon leaned heavily into aesthetic microtransactions, adding many revealing outfits. The studio amped up the sex appeal over time, even bringing in a collaboration between The First Descendant and Nier: Automata’s 2B, but even the skimpiest costumes couldn’t convince people to stay. While these scandalous additions created some short-lived headlines, they weren’t enough to mask the deeper mechanical flaws Lee mentioned.

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Even with the CEO being so critical, the game isn’t quite dead yet, though its pulse is certainly weakening. Nexon is still supporting the project in a “small capacity,” with a fresh patch arriving on April 2 and plans for character updates still moving forward. However, these small updates could be just an interim measure while the company figures out whether a full structural overhaul is even worth the investment. Live-service games are incredibly expensive to maintain, and if the player base continues to hover near the floor, Nexon might eventually pull the plug. Lee asked of new investments: “Can this become something players build their lives around?” and noted that “development costs have climbed, and new games slipped their schedules – two dynamics which compound margin pressure.” For now, fans who are still playing can expect a few more seasonal updates, but the CEO’s blunt comments have left a dark cloud over the game’s long-term survival. The message is clear: without a fundamental change to how the game plays, it may never recover from its current slump.