Is The First Descendant Pay to Win?

Whenever a new MMO hits the market, one of the first questions players have is whether it’s considered “pay to win” or not. Here’s whether The First Descendant is pay to win.

Can You Pay to Win in The First Descendant?

Unfortunately, The First Descendant does implement some pay-to-win tactics. However, it’s up to you whether or not you consider these tactics to be fully pay-to-win.

In The First Descendant, you can unlock new Descendants, which act as the game’s class system, along with XP Boosters and items to bypass certain time barriers with real-life money. This is all in addition to cosmetics, such as Descendant skins, weapon skins, color palettes, etc. Most of this content can be unlocked through the Premium Battle Pass in The First Descendant, which costs a certain amount of Caliber (the in-game currency that costs real money) to purchase. There’s also the in-game store that sells plenty of items for Caliber as well.

For example, the individual Descendants can be bought directly from the store using Caliber. Without Caliber, you need to grind for materials to unlock each new Descendant, which can take hours per character. Speaking of which, Caliber can also unlock XP Boosters, allowing you to bypass hours of grinding in exchange for some cash.

Essentially, The First Descendant features different elements of a pay to win system, but since the game doesn’t feature any sort of PvP (player vs player) combat, the pay to win items only affect your gameplay and no one else’s. Also, every piece of content that can be bought with Caliber can be unlocked through grinding, so the game isn’t locking anyone out of certain content if they can’t pay for it.

Personally, I think this system toes the line fairly well and can be considered “pay to not grind” instead of pay to win. But I do wish items like XP Boosters weren’t in the game at all. If players have enough money, they can level up their rank and Descendants much faster, giving them access to more content sooner than the rest of the player base. As long as The First Descendant doesn’t lock any gameplay content, like Descendants or weapons, behind a paywall, though, I think the system in place works well for a free to play MMORPG.

The First Descendant will be available to play on July 2.