As an Xbox Game Pass member, I find myself constantly on guard when it comes to ‘free’ games. While the games within the Game Pass are indeed free with my subscription, I’m referring to the ones advertised as free, only to discover that they’re filled with microtransactions. I know other companies do it, but I still blame Electronic Arts (EA) for that level of PTSD.
My nervousness isn’t the fault of Microsoft, Xbox, or even Game Pass. I blame one game for that—and truthfully, it wasn’t even a free game. I blame Anthem from EA. Paying for that game, the legendary ultimate edition, before its release, only to get half a game and the developer quit on it after its release kind of soured me and put me on defense when new games are advertised or released. So now, I sit back and worry about getting involved in every looter shooter game that comes out, free or paid, only for the developer to ignore it once it’s out of its beta phase and gets a proper release. The latest game for me has been The First Descendant.
The First Descendant is a cross-platform looter shooter game that appeared on my Xbox home screen as a free game. I didn’t download it right away, though. I waited. I waited to see if my friends were playing it and what they thought about it. Eventually, I gave in and downloaded the game, and I am glad I did. Let me tell you three things about the game I enjoy.
I am a social gamer. I like video games, but I like them better when I can play with my friends. It seems that a large portion of video games made these days are single-player with no option to include even one more player. That one thing turns me off from many of the games released today.
Typically, I don’t get to play during the day. I get to play at night when the house quiets down, and everyone is relaxing at the end of their day. That’s when I like to jump on my Xbox and play a game with my friends. Games like PUBG and Destiny 2 allow me to play cooperative missions with my friends to complete a squad-based objective.
It was pretty cool to learn that The First Descendant was squad-based, with a fire team of up to four people. It is also a nice perk to have it be cross-platform, although it is not a massive deal for me, as most of my gaming buds are on Xbox.
Some missions in the game must be completed solo, but those are the exception and not the rule. Part of my fun is fighting the boss levels with your crew and comparing damage levels afterward, particularly if someone else is running the same character. Comparing character builds to maximize your damage output is just part of the experience, something that wouldn’t be achievable if team play wasn’t allowed.
This is something that the next Star Wars game desperately needs. Outside of the Battlefront II PVP arena, there isn’t much for team play.
One of the more significant worries with a free game, microtransactions or not, is how the game functions and looks. Does the developer skimp and take shortcuts to get their game out to the masses, and the only real focus is to try to get you to buy the in-game microtransactions? Do the graphics look like Elon Musk gave up “designing” trucks and took on video games?
Thankfully, this game isn’t any of those things. Gameplay has improved significantly since the beta release, and now we are in the full first season of the game. Lag issues have been resolved from the beta release, and I think the graphics, which were already very good, have been sharpened. Maybe I’m just seeing things … but I honestly think the graphics got better after the game went to full release.
The developers are listening to feedback from their players and adjusting guns, powers, and more. Seeing those launch notes and update notes tells us, players, that they hear us and are responding.
One gameplay feature I enjoy when I play solo is that I can join a mission when someone else is already playing in one of two ways. One, you go to the mission start, and if it already has other players in the mission, you will be given the join mission option. Two, you can stumble upon the mission’s people and start shooting, so when your bullets hit the alien monsters they are fighting, you immediately join the mission, no matter where they are in the stream of the mission. That little thing helps speed up item gathering and gameplay more than you think.
One of the things that I loved about the original Destiny game and was lost when Destiny 2 came out was the looting for materials and grinding for particular roles on guns.
With Destiny 1, I remember running missions 10-15 times just to try and get the perfect “god roll” on a gun. It would take forever, but it felt earned and awesome when you got it. Destiny lost that feeling when they just handed out the same gun with the same rolls on every weapon.
The First Descendant doesn’t follow that exact routine, but it offers something similar. I love that we can all have the same gun, but how the gun works is different and changed by the modules added to the weapons and the number of modules you can add. The same thing applies to each of the characters, or descendants, in the game. The abilities of guns and characters can vary wildly depending on how people build them.
You have to work to get blueprints, and each of those blueprints has to be researched, and it can take anywhere from 2 to 8 hours to complete. Some characters can take up to 36 hours for creation, and then you get them at level 1 and need to build them up and equip modules to let them be useful in a boss, or colossus, level fight.
The grind is half the fun. It makes the feeling of getting the reward of your gun or descendants that much more rewarding. You had to work for it. It was a grind. It was worth it.
Sure, you can pay for things in the game. You can buy your way into new characters and guns, but if you like the work and grind for what you get, then this is a game for you.
A nice bonus to a really good free game with good graphics and strong gameplay is that it actually has a good story. This will allow the lore for this game to grow and last for several seasons, and they will be able to introduce new characters and weapons easily.
The only thing I paid for in this game was the season pass, which was about nine dollars plus tax. But you get some skins, some guns, and rewards for your efforts as you progress through the season.
I love this game, and you can find me streaming it on Twitch from time to time. Download the game, have some fun, and play with your friends. You can thank me later.
