The First Descendant: Season 1 Quest Guide (2024)

The first season of The First Descendant is now live, adding a new dungeon variant for players to grind. These Invasion dungeons are packed with durable enemies and layered puzzle mechanics, awarding you with Hailey components and other valuable rewards upon completion.

But before you can fend off the Vulgus invasion, you first need to complete this season's main questline. It's fairly short and gives a solid overview of the seasonal mechanics, so virtually all players will want to clear this when they first log in. This guide will explain how to unlock the seasonal questline and give a brief walkthrough for each quest step.

How To Start The Seasonal Questline

The seasonal questline will not be available until you beat the main campaign. There aren't any other requirements, but we also suggest you have a good Descendant build and weapon loadout before you start this quest chain. One of the missions is a solo dungeon that's fairly difficult if you aren't prepared. Mod your guns for high ATK power and weak point damage, and spec your Descendant for more HP and DEF.

Once you've completed the main campaign, you'll automatically gain the "Mysterious Phenomena" quest in your quest log. Talk to Nell in Albion to get started.

Mysterious Phenomena Quest Guide

Nell will brief you on a disturbing illness that seems to have affected every Descendant after the Ironheart's destruction. She will ask you to complete a few missions in place of these incapacitated Descendants.

Fallen Teammates

Your first goal is to complete the "Block Kuiper Mining" mission in White-Night Gulch. This is a Special Operation that requires you to defend against waves of Vulgus forces. Bunny and Viessa make short work of this mission, but the difficulty is fairly low; anything will work. Fight until wave six before you leave.

Inversion Circulation Device

"Inversion Circulation Device" is the next subquest in the seasonal story arc, requiring you to complete the [Hard] Old Mystery dungeon in Hagios. There aren't any special mechanics here, and you can queue for public matchmaking if your build can't solo it. Finish the mission and return to Albion.

Altered Design

Multiple Descendants will advocate changing the Guide's inversion device into something more effective for combat. After some deliberation, the initial circulation device has been reconfigured to act as an empowering tool for most Descendants. Talk to Anais in Albion and craft the Inversion Reinforcement Device (IRD).

The IRD acts as a seasonal artifact that will reset every three months. As you complete seasonal content and earn Ironheart Particles, you'll earn XP towards your IRD. Spend those points to unlock new perks, and activate those perks to make use of them in seasonal and endgame content. You can read more about this season's IRD mechanic through our Inversion Reinforcement guide.

Rescue Hailey

Now that you're empowered with the IRD, it's time to put the device through its paces. Humanity's newest Descendant, Hailey, is pinned down in the mountains of the Fortress region. You'll need to complete an Invasion dungeon to save her.

The mission is the Quarantine Zone dungeon with some new puzzle mechanics. You'll spawn in a fairly small cavern with plates lining the ground. Grapple to the floating plate that's marked on your HUD. Every plate on the ground will begin to glow a certain color. If you look at the blockade at the end of the room, you'll notice three plates with similar colors. Your goal is to light the floor plates that match the wall symbols.

Standing on a plate for a few seconds will charge it fully, causing it to emit a golden beam from the center. Activate all three plates, and don't let the Vulgus capture the plate. If they get near one, the plate will become dormant and require reactivation. You must repeat this process for each room until you reach the final boss. You're technically timed, but you can always restart the mission.

At the end of the dungeon is a boss who is impervious to all incoming damage. You must stand on a plate that matches the boss' shield color before damaging the enemy. In our case, the boss' shield emitted a faint purple hue, so we stood atop a purple plate. You can step off the plate once the shield is broken. The rest of the fight plays out like normal. Use nearby cover to avoid the boss' shotgun blasts.

Invasion

Hailey has made it back to Albion in one piece, but the fight against the Vulgus is far from over. You will now have access to Invasion dungeons, variants of [Hard] dungeon content where you need to complete puzzles before fighting a boss. You'll need to complete ten Invasion missions to complete this step.

Regions with an active invasion are marked with a red border on your map. Inspect the map to see which subregion is under attack. The dungeon within that subregion will count as an Invasion dungeon. Each Invasion dungeon can only be cleared solo, so bring a good loadout. A strong single-target weapon and durable Descendant are recommended.