Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Free-to-play shooter The First Descendant launches this summer

Add as a preferred source on Google
Summer Gaming Marathon Feature Image
This story is part of our Summer Gaming Marathon series.
The First Descendant│Official Launch Date Reveal│Summer Game Fest 2024

The long-awaited The First Descendant from Nexon Games is finally going live. The co-op looter shooter will soon be available on July 2, it was revealed at Summer Game Fest 2024.

Recommended Videos

The game, which will pit players against an alien invasion while imbuing those characters with superpowers, will be free to play across PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. A new trailer at Summer Game Fest revealed its release date alongside a fresh look at its Unreal Engine 5 visuals.

Nexon previously announced during The Game Awards 2023 that The First Descendant would be launching this summer, although it didn’t have a more specific release window. It did confirm it was on track for the summer though in a post on X (formerly Twitter) in May. The studio has held a number of technical tests, along with a crossplay open beta in 2023. Crossplay, along with cross-saves, will be available at launch.

In case you haven’t been following along over the past few years, in The Final Descendant, players will take on the role of a Descendant, a person with powers who has to protect Earth against aliens called the Vulgus. Game producer Lee Beom-jun told Digital Trends in a 2022 interview that the game will reveal the story as players go through missions and get access to updates, so offering a closer blend of narrative and the gameplay of more casual free-to-play shooters.

“We have a main story in the game, and the content is delivered through quests and in-game cinematic scenes. We will continue to add these stories with each major update,” Beom-jun said. “In addition to the main story, several other stories and story settings will be shown through various methods in the game. Discovering these hidden side stories and background lore will be exciting and fun.”

Carli Velocci
Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…
Modern Warfare 4 brings Call of Duty back to its glory days. I hope the streak lives.
Infinity Ward’s latest campaign goes back to Call of Duty’s roots and recaptures what made me a fan more than a decade ago.
Call of Duty MW4 menu screen

The Call of Duty franchise has held a special place in my heart ever since I played my first Black Ops game back in 2010. That game's campaign was something else, with twists and turns that culminated in a mind-blowing finale. We can all admit that compared to those older campaigns, the recent CODs have been lackluster at best, and a complete and utter disappointment at worst. The reboot of Modern Warfare did give me some hope, as the first two installments were actually quite good, but the third game left such a bad taste in my mouth that I wasn’t exactly expecting much from Modern Warfare 4.

After recently finishing the campaign, I can say that this installment is nothing like the recent releases and instead feels closer to the franchise’s roots. For the first time in a long while, the campaign comes across as well-crafted rather than rushed to hit a release date. It arrives three years after MW3, and you can see exactly where all that time went. It seems the studio finally made listening to player feedback a priority.

Read more
Epic is throwing $50,000 for vibe-code games. What could possibly go wrong?
Epic is rewarding vibe-coded games with real money
Epic MegaJam 2026

Epic Games has just announced the 2026 Epic AI MegaJam, which is looking to see how much game development can be squeezed into a very short window. This is running from November 12 through November 15.

Participants can work alone or in teams of up to five people, build in Unreal Engine or Unreal Editor for Fortnite, and bring along “as many AI agents as you want.” Epic explicitly encourages coding agents, AI-generated assets, audio tools, writing tools, and other AI systems. The official event page literally says "Vibe your way to $50k.”

Read more
Monster Hunter Outlanders arrives on Android and iOS next week with four-player co-op
The free-to-play spin-off launches October 29 with open-world exploration, mobile-focused combat, and a building system.
Monster Hunter Outlanders poster

It’s turning into a pretty good time to be a Monster Hunter fan who plays on a phone. Capcom has confirmed that Monster Hunter Outlanders will launch on Android and iOS on October 29, giving the series a new mobile-first game just as Monster Hunter Rise is also preparing to make the jump to smartphones through Netflix.

Outlanders is being developed by Tencent subsidiary TiMi Studio Group under license and supervision from Capcom. Unlike Rise, which appears to be the full console and PC game adapted for mobile, Outlanders is a free-to-play survival hunting game made specifically for phones.

Read more