What you need to know
- The wait is finally over, as Nexon has released the massive Season 1 "Invasion" update for The First Defendant.
- Falling under version 1.1.0, this update includes a huge amount of new content, including the new Descendant Hailey, a new Battle Pass, Invasion Dungeons, and more.
- However, Nexon is also implementing countless quality-of-life improvements and balancing changes to The First Descendant.
- That includes sizeable buffs to Void Fragment, Fusion Reactor, Gold, and XP farming across the board, buffs for three Descendants, and lots of refinements for the interface
The First Descendant Pre-Season is officially over, and a new era has begun. Well, part of a new era, as Nexon did pull a fast one on players by splitting announced Season 1 content into two separate updates, but there is still a ton to go over today. The First Descendant: Season 1 "Invasion" is finally here, and it comes alongside a positively massive content update packed with new features, improvements, and buffs.
You can check out the new sizzle reel above to ramp up your hype levels, but the short trailer doesn't even begin to cover everything included in this monstrous release. This is by far the largest update Nexon has ever released for The First Descendant, and there is a very long list of improvements included in the seemingly endless changelog. Yes, even more than what we already knew from The First Descendant: Season 1 announcement.
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I could spend all day just reading this changelog
It would frankly take far too long to go over every single update in The First Descendant 1.1.0, and this article would be a mile long if I copy and pasted the changelog, so I'll simply highlight the most important changes and new additions below. If you want the full rundown, you can find The First Descendant 1.1.0 changelog on Nexon's website, as well as the changelog for the hotfix patch released shortly after.
- New campaign episode, Invasion. After completing all the main story missions, you'll have access to a brand-new mission line beginning with the "Mysterious Phenomena" quest. Nexon has been rather quiet on the new narrative content, so it's not clear just how much has been added with Season 1.
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Invasion Dungeons. A new way to play, these are solo-only missions that will appear alongside two random Infiltration Operations daily. Players can take on these Invasion Dungeons to obtain unique rewards, including research components for the new Descendant.
- Invasion Dungeons are all about speed, with players able to increase the completion rewards depending on how fast they finish the mission
- Players can complete up to two Invasion Dungeons a day
- Rewards for Invasion Dungeons include Gold, new Ironheart Particles (XP for the new Inversion Reinforcement seasonal progression), and Descendant research parts
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Inversion Reinforcement. A new form of seasonal progression is here with Inversion Reinforcement, which lets players upgrade all their Descendants simultaneously for the duration of a Season.
- Inversion Reinforcement is seasonal, meaning it'll reset each Season, but does apply to all Descendants
- There are five Inversion Reinforcement categories, "Hunt," "Attribute," "Recovery," "Survival," and "Season"
- Each category will have four Effects and one Collection Effect, with the Collection Effect active at all times once the entire category has been unlocked
- Players can select one Effect from a categories at a time (aside from the Collection Effect), and can enable up to three categories
- Inversion Reinforcement is progressed with Ironheart Particles, which are earned from Invasion Dungeons and brand-new Hard Mode Battlefield Missions
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New Descendant, Hailey Scott. The latest Descendant, Hailey, is a new Chill-Attribute Descendant (like Viessa) that specializes in dishing out massive damage, especially with sniper rifles.
- Her passive ability increases Weak Point damage on distant enemies and decreases it on nearby enemies
- "Cryo Rounds" automatically fires Chill bullets at nearby enemies
- "Storm Snare" knocks back enemies with a Chill vortex and fires a freezing beam
- "Cold Fury" ramps up Firearm Penetration, Firearm Critical Hit Rate, and Skill Critical Hit Rate, at the cost of Movement Speed
- Finally, her Ultimate "Zenith" equips her unique weapon, a massive sniper rifle that massively increases Firearm Penetration and Firearm ATK, and deals added Chill damage
- You can obtain the research components for Hailey by completing Invasion Dungeons or specific Hard Mode Infiltration Operations
- New Battle Pass. The Pre-Season Battle Pass is over, and in its place is the new Season 1 "Invasion" Battle Pass, Supply Shop, and Bonus Shop. Players can earn new accessories, outfits, in-game currency, and more, including the "EXCAVA" Ultimate Weapon.
- New Shop content. Nexon has added a ton of new cosmetic items to the Shop, including exclusive outfits and cosmetics for Hailey, new Makeup and Paint colors, and much more.
- New Descendant Task Event. For the beginning of Season 1, players can now earn exclusive rewards by completing repeating Daily Tasks for Gold, Kuiper Shards, EXP Boosts, and materials or Event Tasks for Crystallization Catalysts and large sums of Gold. This Event lasts until Sept. 9.
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Farming improvements. Nexon has implemented a ton of changes to improve the farming experience for Encryption Vaults, Hard Mode Infiltration Operations, Void Fragments and Fusion Reactors, and more.
- Using the Ecive now includes a visual indicator for nearby Encryption Vaults
- Hard Mode Infiltration Operations have replaced many time-based missions with more fast-based combat missions
- You can now earn rare basic materials and additional EXP from completing Hard Mode Infiltration Options
- EXP for defeating monsters has increased by 1.5 times in all Infiltration Operations
- Many Named Monsters no longer use Immunity Sphere mechanics
- Hard Mode Outposts now reward 3 times the Gold
- All Void Fragments reward far more Void Shards, and Void Fragments in the same area as a Void Fusion Reactor now reward the exact Shards you need for that Reactor
- Void Fusion Reactors now only need one type of Void Shard for the Reconstructed Devices
- You can now interact with Reconstructed Devices faster
- Special Operations now reward double the Void Shards
- Additional Descendant EXP is rewarded when completing Special Operations stages
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Descendant buffs. Various Descendants have received buffs to help their gameplay viability, including Jayber, Blair, and Ajax.
- Jayber's "Turret Sync" Skill now applies to summoned turrets, and more stat modifications now affect turrets
- All of Blair's Skills have been improved with various buffs like increased DMG, increased Attribute Effect DMG, increased Duration, reduced MP Cost, better stacking and Skill synergy, and more
- Improved various Ajax Skills and Modules with various changes like Skills now being affected by Attribute Resistances, further increasing Ajax's defense, having faster transitions, and more
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Improved UI & UX. The interface in The First Descendant has received another batch of enhancements to make it more informative and easier to use.
- Players can now assign multiple Socket Types to each Module Socket and switch between them, including having different Socket Types for each Loadout
- Players can now research multiple Enhancement Materials at a time
- The "Filter as Junk" options now give players far more control and flexibility
- Many elements such as equipment icons, Mission Details, and various tooltips have been improved
- A huge number of bug fixes. Of course, The First Descendant 1.1.0 also includes a bunch of miscellaneous bug fixes and performance improvements, with Nexon even releasing a client-side patch with more fixes shortly after the major update's release.
Nexon continues to impress me with its incredible support for The First Descendant, with the 1.1.0 content update including a gargantuan number of really positive changes. Nothing is being nerfed into the ground; instead, Nexon has improved the farming experience across the board alongside various Descendant buffs and a ton of new ways to play or progress. There's a lot of good stuff here, cementing TFD as one of the best games on Xbox right now.
Of course, we're not getting everything in Season 1 "Invasion" right away. Ultimate Freyna, new boss battles and Ultimate Weapons, and more are still yet to come, with a planned release on Oct. 10, 2024 for those features. Players aren't lacking for new content to check out right now, though, especially with the Inversion Reinforcement progression system offering players multiple ways to earn Ironheart Particles.
The First Descendant: Season 1 "Invasion" is now available as the 1.1.0 update across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5. How do you feel about the new release?
