The First Descendant Bans Thousands of Users in a Sweeping Statement Against Those That Exploit

The First Descendant is a fairly new co-op looter shooter, but its developers aren’t backing down from wiping out huge portions of its player base in an attempt to keep things simple and clean for the fair players.

Players that have restored to cheating or exploiting the game have been completely wiped. If any were missed out, NEXON is going to get them sooner or later.

The First Descendant Isn’t Giving Cheaters a Pass

Every online game has the issue of people using third-party hacks and exploits to get ahead of everyone else (and mess up the game for everyone). Call of Duty is one of the more infamous franchises with so many cheaters that people aren’t even sure how to tackle the issue.

It’s an inevitable fate for games that don’t have stringent anti-cheating and anti-hacking measures in place. NEXON seems ahead of the curve, however, not giving these bad-faith players any breathing room to infect its game. In a new blog post, the company says:

Here are the results of the crackdown on abusive users carried out between 7/12(Fri) – 7/18(Thu).

Following this is a very long list detailing every single account that has had action taken against it. In this wave, 1305 users were given a permanent game ban for the creation, distribution, or use of unauthorized programs.

At the bottom of this list is a new one, listing all the accounts (428) given a permanent game ban for the exploitation of all processes related to the Open Store. Supposedly, they had unfair gains by exploitation of the store payment process.

These are just one of the many more crackdowns we’ll see throughout the game’s lifespan, hopefully.

Do Players Trust the Developers to Handle Hackers?

Even before the game was released, people were concerned about the presence of cheaters and hackers in the game.

When one player heard that NEXON was using Easy Anti Cheat (EAC) for the game, which is also used by Fortnite, Sea of Thieves, and Dead by Daylight, they grew concerned for The First Descendant‘s QoL.

Concered For QOL And Cheaters
byu/Specialist-Worth2587 inTheFirstDescendant

They were worried that the game’s hypothetical PvP would be ruined, fearing EAC’s inability to do its job.

Others quickly shut down OP’s concerns, mentioning that the studio would also use its internal anti-cheat system, BlackCipher, in addition to EAC. Plus, the studio confirmed no PvP for the game.

If players cheated, at most, it would be to insta-kill bosses or grind resources, which could easily be detected and those players banned.

First cheater spotted in game
byu/Sure-Cardiologist972 inTheFirstDescendant

Soon after the game came out, someone posted a video of a cheater obliterating enemies in a match. People were mostly joking about getting free materials from the soon-to-be-banned player.

They might’ve been one of the many that were nuked in the recent crackdown. Surely, there are a lot more to come.

Overall, it looks like people trust the studio’s ability to protect the game, but it also helps that cheating doesn’t give you a big advantage over others, because of PvP’s absence.

What’s your opinion on cheating in games like The First Descendant? Let us know in the comments below!