The First Descendant Beginner Guide (Season 4, 2026)
New to The First Descendant? Here is where to start — which Descendant to pick, the systems that matter, the farms to know, and what to ignore until endgame.
The First Descendant is a free-to-play looter shooter, and the first ten hours can be overwhelming: dozens of currencies, a research system, mods, modules, Transcendent Weapons, and a story that assumes you already know what a Colossus is.
This guide is the short version. It covers what to do first, what matters, and what you can safely ignore until you reach endgame.
What the game is
You play a Descendant — a super-powered soldier fighting the Vulgus invaders. The loop is simple: run missions, kill things, loot gear, make your Descendant stronger, run harder missions. Four-player co-op is the core mode, but everything except the hardest content is doable solo.
Three things make TFD different from other looters:
The Descendant matters more than the gear. Your character’s skills and passives define your playstyle, and the gear amplifies it. A good build on a mediocre Descendant beats a random pile of good mods.
Everything is research-gated. New Descendants, weapons, and materials go through a research system at Anais in Albion. It takes time and materials, and planning what to research first is a real decision.
Endgame is a rotation. The hardest content — Onslaught, the Mega Dungeon, Trials — resets weekly, and the gear chase is built around those resets.
Picking your first Descendant
You start with a choice of three:
Ajax — the tank. High health, shields, and defensive skills. The most forgiving choice: you can stand in the open, make mistakes, and survive. Good for learning the game.
Lepic — the fire damage dealer. Area-of-effect skills, good at clearing groups. Slightly more demanding because you have to get close.
Viessa — the chill debuffer. Slows and damages with ice. Good at controlling enemies, and her debuffs help the whole team.
The recommendation: Ajax if you are new to looters, Lepic if you have played games like this before, Viessa if you prefer a support role. All three are viable — the game gives you all three eventually through research anyway.
The first five hours
Do the story missions. They unlock the world, the systems, and your second Descendant (Bunny, the electric damage dealer). Do not skip the story — it is the tutorial.
Equip everything you loot. Early on, any upgrade is a real upgrade. The game gives you a clear “better item” comparison — use it.
Do the Research Institute tutorial. When Bunny unlocks, the game walks you through the research system. Pay attention — research is how you get everything that matters later.
Do not spend Gold early. Gold is the main currency for research, and research is expensive. The shop has cosmetics and convenience items; skip them.
Level with the story. The story levels you at a reasonable pace. Do not grind XP before you finish it.
The systems, ranked by importance
1. Descendant level and Mastery Rank. Your character level caps how strong you can get. Mastery Rank is your account-wide progression — it unlocks capacity for mods and gives permanent bonuses. Both matter.
2. Mods. Mods are the gear. Every Descendant has module sockets, and the right mods transform a character. Farming mods is the main early-game activity after the story.
3. Weapons. Each Descendant has a preferred weapon type, and the weapon’s level matters as much as its rarity. Level the weapons you actually use.
4. External Components. The armor-equivalent slots. Less impactful than mods early, important later.
5. Reactors and Arche Tuning. The deep endgame systems. Ignore them until you are running the hardest content.
The farms to know
XP: The fastest early XP is the story missions themselves, then the repeatable missions at your level. Do not chase the “best XP farm” videos until you have finished the story — the farms they show require endgame access.
Gold: Missions pay Gold, and the weekly content pays the most. Do the weekly operations — they are the best Gold-per-hour in the game.
Mods: Mods drop from missions and bosses. The Ancestor Modules — the strongest ones — come from specific endgame content. Early on, any mod with the right stats is fine.
Research materials: Every Descendant and weapon needs unique materials. The game tells you where to find each one when you inspect it — the trick is checking the inspect menu instead of guessing.
What to ignore until endgame
Transcendent Weapons. The golden-border ultimate weapons are the endgame chase. They require materials from the hardest content. Do not worry about them until your main Descendant is leveled and modded.
Perfect mod rolls. Early mods do not need perfect stats. Get the mod, level it, move on. Optimizing comes later.
Ultimate Descendants. The upgraded versions of existing characters are a huge time and material investment. Your first goal is a solid normal Descendant, not an Ultimate one.
Arche Tuning and reactors. The deepest systems. They matter at the highest difficulty levels, and nowhere else.
The daily routine
Once you are past the story:
- Do your dailies — they are quick and they pay.
- Run the weekly operations — the best rewards in the game.
- Level your main Descendant and its weapon — always keep them at your level cap.
- Research one thing at a time — do not spread materials thin.
- Play the content you enjoy — the game is long, and burning out on a farm is the main way players quit.
The one thing to remember
Pick a Descendant you enjoy, do the story, equip everything, and do your weeklies. The First Descendant is a long game — the players who progress fastest are not the ones who grind hardest, they are the ones who did the story, did their weeklies, and never wasted materials on a system they did not understand yet.