- Primary Subject: The First Descendant
- Key Update: Nexon CEO acknowledges the game's lack of staying power and need for structural changes.
- Status: Complete
- Last Verified: 2026-04-02
- Quick Answer: The CEO of Nexon admitted that The First Descendant lacks staying power due to fundamental design issues that require significant changes.
The First Descendant was positioned as a live-service game that "gamers" wanted, with overtly sexualized characters that would allegedly make it a massive success. Two years after its release, the CEO of developer Nexon is calling it a title with no "staying power."
Revealed in a Nexon financial document (as per Insider Gaming), Nexon CEO Lee Jung-hun bluntly admitted that, to make The First Descendant a success again, they'll need to make foundational changes to the game.
According to Jung-hun, the game had a "strong launch, (but) no staying power. These are design issues that are not fixed with a patch – they require structural changes to game mechanics."
To be perfectly honest, he's not wrong. Having tried the game for myself, the curvy women and jiggle physics (which were added until 2025 and highly publicized as a brand-new feature called "Dynamic Motion") did very little to sway me into staying for the long haul.
The same could be said about 90% of the fanbase. The game peaked at a very healthy 264,860 concurrent players on Steam; now, it can barely crack more than 4k players at any given moment.
With such shallow gameplay, it's understandable that the Nexon CEO was so straightforward in admitting that The First Descendant would need to be basically remade to make it an appealing offer for players. After all, if all you're banking in order to cultivate a fanbase is character looks, nothing's stopping them from simply doing their business elsewhere, if you catch my drift.
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