Stop me if you've heard this one before. A live-service looter shooter launches after a suitable, sometimes bordering on excessive, amount of hype. Its player counts, at least on Steam (perhaps other platforms as well), range from underwhelming to horrendous. Then it fades away, popping up occasionally with new seasonal content that barely musters any attention while many wonder how big-time publishers could expect more.
Marvel's Avengers, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and even Skull and Bones to an extent – it feels like we've seen some variation on this rule throughout the years. However, exceptions always exist. Helldivers 2 proved that a live service title still has commercial appeal, with over 12 million copies sold as of May. We now have Nexon's The First Descendant proving that not all looter shooters are doomed to obscurity.