Nexon CEO admits The First Descendant had 'no staying power,' and that can't be addressed with a quick fix: 'These are design issues that are not fixed with a patch'

The First Descendant’s launch hype went over like a bag of candy smuggled into a movie theater—exciting at first, but regrettably short-lived. While last July it was celebrating a screaming high of 10 million players in its first week alone, SteamDB shows the game has simmered to around 5,000 concurrent players as I write this. Steam user reviews add up to a “mixed” user rating, and even Nexon’s CEO has weighed in on the game’s dubious trajectory.

The company discussed the game in a recent capital markets briefing to investors (thanks, GamesRadar), with CEO Junghun Lee giving clear examples of games that did well for Nexon and games that fell off. Where Arc Raiders and MapleStory got kudos, The First Descendant showed up alongside Dungeon & Fighter Mobile on a slide bluntly labeled “What Did Not Work.”