The First Descendant debut tops Fall Guys and more as Steam player count soars

The First Descendant has arrived in spectacular fashion by rocketing up the Steam charts in its early hours, topping industry juggernauts like Fall Guys already when it comes to peak player count.

The First Descendant is a brand-new free-to-play third-person looter shooter from Korean developer NEXON. Despite a rocky start with its PS5 performance, the game is doing numbers on PC.

Players have come out in droves to try their hand with The First Descendant’s suite of characters and weapons. In just two hours, the game managed to draw over 170,000 concurrent players on Steam beating out the launches of phenomenons like Fall Guys and Manor Lords.

According to data from SteamDB, the game managed to reach a peak player count of 229,257 on its first day. Though despite a keen interest, it’s not entirely smooth sailing for The First Descendant at launch.

At the time of writing, the game is currently sitting in the sixth spot of Steam’s most-played games in the past 24-hour window, but it had briefly cracked the top five. Despite this initial success, however, The First Decendant’s reviews on the platform tell a different story.

Of the game’s 10,829 reviews, only 45% of them are positive. This has quickly dropped it to a ‘Mixed’ rating which could spell issues for The First Descendant’s retention.

The primary complaints revolve around the game’s monetization efforts and information gathering. Mixed in with these are unfavorable comparisons to other games in the genre.

In contrast, other players have praised the gameplay saying that the skills and progression feel “impactful”. Most positive reviews urge people to give the game a try given the risk-free, free-to-play model.

Only time will tell if The First Decendant can maintain this initial interest from players. If you’re looking to try it out, we have guides on unlocking characters like Bunny and Gley as well as tips for ranking up your Mastery.