What you need to know
- The First Descendant is a brand new MMORPG looter shooter that is causing a stir in the video game community.
- However, on the second day of the official release, The First Descendant’s servers experienced numerous problems.
- Many players reported being unable to connect to the game at all, and others reported sporadic disconnections, even in the middle of missions.
- After several outages and two server maintenance periods, The First Descendant finally seems to be back (and players are being compensated for the inconvenience).
Update, July 3, 2024 — Now updated as the second round of server maintenance for The First Descendant has completed.
The First Descendant was barely playable for practically the entire second day, but the server issues are now (hopefully) fully resolved. Nexon has completed the second round of server maintenance for the game and The First Descendant is back online. I can confirm that you can log in without any lag or latency.
To compensate for the hours of downtime today, Nexon is gifting all players who log in over the next five days a collection of 3-day 30% gain boosts for Gold, Kuiper Shards, Descendant XP, and Weapon XP. Players can redeem their compensation rewards from the mailbox in HQ, and the boosts will be activated immediately upon redemption.
Hopefully day three goes much more smoothly for The First Descendant, as the team needs a clear win to secure a healthy future. If you want to know all the details of the entire situation as it unfolded, then visit our Original articles and updates continue directly below.
Server maintenance has been completed and gameplay is now available. We apologize for the inconvenience caused by the extended maintenance and have prepared compensation. More details: https://t.co/BIpy88Rx2j■ Maintenance Completion07/03 (Wed) 20:25 PDT…July 4, 2024
Update, July 3, 2024 — Updated because The First Descendant has experienced server issues again.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably like me – you’re still experiencing server issues with The First Descendant. While Nexon warned that there would be server instability for a while when the game came back online, players (myself included) are experiencing more than just simple instability. The previous server connection issue that prevented players from even getting past the main menu is rearing its ugly head again.
Hopefully, it really is just a temporary side effect of all the work Nexon probably had to do on The First Descendant’s servers today, and our hours of (unwilling) patience will lead to healthier, more stable servers in the future. For now, though, it looks like The First Descendant’s second day will be dominated by server outages and issues, and players will once again be prevented from even setting foot in Ingris.
Update, July 3, 2024 — The update comes as The First Descendant servers are slowly coming back online.
The Descendants have waited a long time to resume the war against the Vulgus, and now it seems the gates are opening again. The First Descendant team at Nexon has confirmed that the servers are back online and players can try connecting again, but there is a limitation.
According to Nexon, the issue with Microsoft’s Azure network is not 100% resolved, so some players may still experience server instability when playing The First Descendant. Hopefully, these issues are rare and will be resolved quickly. Whatever the case, it seems like we’re finally past The First Descendant’s first server hell.
(Update) 07/03(Wed) Game connection issue notice# PDT 2024.07.03(Wed) 12:05 – The server is now open. MS Network is not fully restored yet, server may experience unstable statusJuly 3, 2024
Update, July 3, 2024 — Updated with a new message from The First Descendant team at Nexon.
Hours later, we finally have our first proper update from The First Descendant team at Nexon. According to the update (which you can see below), the server outages still affecting the game were “primarily” due to a bug in Microsoft’s network. The use of the word “primarily” suggests that there may be other issues that need to be addressed as well.
As for the rest of the update, it’s clear that The First Descendant uses Microsoft Azure for its server infrastructure (along with hundreds of other games, companies, and products). It seems that an external issue in this regard is contributing to The First Descendant’s server outage. The Nexon team is apparently waiting for this issue to be addressed by Microsoft.
It’s unclear if this is in any way related to the Xbox Network server outage that occurred yesterday, linked directly below.
(Update) 07/03 (Wed) Game Connection Issue Advisory # PDT 07/03/2024 (Wed) 00:00 – We have determined that the connection issue is primarily due to an MS network error and are awaiting recovery from MS. We will notify you once the recovery is complete.July 3, 2024
Update, July 3, 2024 — Updated with the latest development that The First Descendant is entering “maintenance mode”.
Lest you think I’ve left you in the lurch, here’s a quick update on The First Descendant server outage. The game has been in an official maintenance mode started by the Nexon team for some time, so you can’t even access the main menu.
This offline maintenance mode is an intentional measure by Nexon and will likely continue until all backend server issues are resolved, at which point the game will go back online.
Update, July 3, 2024 — Updated with response from The First Descendant team.
Time for a quick update! Less than five minutes after this post was published, the First Descendant team at Nexon posted an update on Twitter (or X, whatever) confirming the ongoing server issues. So we’re officially not imagining the outage. It seems the team is investigating the cause and working on a fix – hopefully we won’t have to wait long for the servers to come back online.
We have detected that game connections are temporarily unavailable. ■ Details – Game Connection ErrorWe apologize for the inconvenience caused by this error. We are working to determine the cause and resolve the issue immediately. We will notify you immediately once the issue is resolved. pic.twitter.com/Qk98RZUhFBJuly 3, 2024
For a moment, it seemed like The First Descendant would narrowly avoid the almost inevitable release day issues that plague many major multiplayer games, but the effect was only delayed. We’re heading into the second day of this co-op looter shooter’s existence, and the servers have suddenly gone bad, leaving many Descendants unable to enter Ingris at all.
More specifically, players launching the game for the first time are experiencing a never-ending, repeating error code when they first try to connect to the game servers, and are unable to get past the main menu. Players who were in the game – even in the middle of a mission – experienced sudden disconnections and ended up in the same places as players who logged in for the first time today. It’s unclear if all players are affected, but the outage is clearly visible on social media (and it affected the Windows Central team as well).
At the moment we are either waiting for the server issues to resolve themselves or for The First Descendant team at Nexon to identify the issues and look for a solution. So far neither has happened and we are not aware of any workarounds to circumvent the server outage.
We’ll keep you updated on the situation, though, as we’re obviously keen to get back into the fray too. You can check out some of The First Descendant’s other known issues and launch errors for more problems players are encountering, but none are as bad as a complete server outage.
To be honest, I expected server issues to crop up sooner or later, so as long as The First Descendant team is working diligently and transparently to restore the game, that doesn’t mean The First Descendant has a chance of becoming one of the best Xbox games. It’s frustrating, though, considering the Xbox Network went down yesterday.
When The First Descendant is back online, be sure to check out our guide on setting up crossplay and cross-save in The First Descendant so you can play with your friends. If you’re tuning in for the first time, you might be better served with our The First Descendant character tier list or even our general The First Descendant FAQs.
While the servers are currently down, The First Descendant is now available for Xbox Series X|S or Xbox One, Windows PC via Steam, or PlayStation 5 or 4 and can be downloaded free in the Microsoft Store (Xbox).