Summer Game Fest 2024 – We interview the developers of The First Descendant

while passing Summer Games Festival Many attention-grabbing titles were presented, but one of the most curious was First lineageWhich has been available since yesterday.

This game is a multiplayer title. Free to play Developed by the famous Korean studio NixonWe had the opportunity to speak with the producer. Lee Bum Joon And the manager Minseok Jo To learn more about this title, like what we can expect in terms of Latin American servers or what the character design process looks like.

—I had a chance to play The First Descendant, and I tried a little bit of the gameplay, the shooting, the customization, and I see a lot of inspiration from Borderlands, Destiny. But for the first time in a long time, I feel like it’s the perfect blend of those systems. With all that inspiration, what was the main inspiration behind creating the game?

Minseok Jo—I played many different games to get inspiration for developing this title, and I’m a huge fan of “The Thieves Archers“But I wanted to do something different. A lot of it is first-person, and I wanted to change it up, and do something faster, with more fluid movement that blends better with the action.

– Was The First Descendant designed as a free-to-play game from the start? Or did you at some point consider making it a prize title, without a Battle Pass or monetization systems?

Lee Bum Joon:- From the beginning this was a title Free to playWe have microtransactions and a Battle Pass, but as a Korean studio we wanted to break down barriers so everyone could play without any barriers. Since we are not well known in the industry in general, we decided to go ahead with a game Free to play.

—It’s a smart decision, I’ve seen so many great games fail because they didn’t think this way. There’s a question I always like to ask when interviewing Korean developers, because everyone basically looks to Japan when thinking about Asian games. I really enjoy Korean games, when I was younger I used to play a lot of Korean MMOs like Lineage 2.

Lee Bum Joon:- I was a developer in ratio 2! pleased to meet you!

-Thank you for the many hours of fun! I think that with all these types of games, it has shaped my identity today, which is why I pay so much attention to games developed in Korea. With all this in mind, what would you say to the world, especially Latin America, about Korean games and how the industry has grown there?

Minseok Jo: — Traditionally in console games, Japan is obviously very good at making them, but in online games, Korean developers stand out. I feel very proud to be able to use these techniques in a looter shooter and show it to such a large audience, especially the Latin American audience. This is the first time we are showing the game to the world, and we don’t have all the information about, for example, what kind of games or characters people in Latin America like. It was a pleasure to be able to meet so many Latin Americans at this event.

Lee Bum Joon: —Now I have a question for you: What kind of character do you like in games, and if you could create one, what would it be?

-That’s a great question. I love characters like Bunny, both in terms of design and gameplay. Every time I create a character, I’m trying to make a fantasy version of myself, so I try to make them look like me but with all the things I know I can’t have because I’m not in a fantasy world.

Minseok Jo:-This is from playing a lot of MMOs!

—I have to say this is the genre I’ve played the most, with games like Blade & Soul.

Lee Bum Joon: —I was also part of this team!

– You basically designed my childhood! Now that we’re bringing Latin America into the conversation, it’s a region that’s very interested in gaming. Free to playWith this revenue, do you expect many players from the region? Will we have servers for Latin America?

Minseok Jo: — We have done many tests, people from Latin America, from Mexico, from Brazil, they love our game. We already have servers for the region, but they are not separate. Anyway, we want to tell you that we have a server for you at launch that will be stable, there will be no disconnection, it will not be interrupted.

—As I said before, I really like MMOs, and I’m playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV right now. What I like about that game is the number of classes and options it offers. I see The First Descendant as similar, there will be 19 characters at launch and more to come. What is the process of designing characters so that they are completely different from each other and each experience is unique?

Minseok Jo: — The reason we created so many characters is because we wanted to cover all players’ preferences and satisfy them. So, first we think “what kind of things can this character do?”, then we try to match those skills with his appearance, and we think that if those things match, the character will be popular. We wanted to release these characters so that players can feel their power with different weapons. We wanted players to make those illusions part of their reality. These 19 are not the end, more will come later.

– Does the entire team make suggestions when designing a new character? Or is there a dedicated team of designers for this task?

Lee Bum Joon: — There aren’t enough ideas on the designer team to get this much variation, so we get the whole team involved. Sometimes the look is designed first and the weapons and abilities come later. We plan to gather all the different ideas from the whole team so that we can release new characters every three months.