The developer behind the surprise hit The First Descendant, Nexon, is celebrating the game reaching 10 million players in its first week and responded to allegations that some of the game's icons were ripped from Destiny 2.
It was only last week that The First Descendant became available to play on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The title is a free-to-play looter shooter game that immediately made its way to Steam's Top 10 live chart despite gaining mixed reviews on Valve's gaming platform.
The First Descendant's Success
(Photo : Nexon / Screenshot taken from Steam)
The official account of the game on X, formerly known as Twitter, has posted that they had recorded 10 million players across all platforms. And looking at SteamDB, the game registered a concurrent player peak of 264,000 a few days ago.
There was also an estimate of "owners" of the game on Valve's gaming platform that ranged from 1.37 million to 3.19 million. The developer is also facing criticism over several skill icons that seem to resemble those used by Bungie in Destiny 2, according to WCCFTech.
In response, Nexon said that The First Descendant was developed with a deep affection and respect for other games in the genre. It added that Destiny 2 is globally renowned in this genre and was personally admired and respected by the team.
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The studio said that Bungie's own title served as an inspiration during The First Descendant's development process. It noted that it took the community's concerns seriously and has decided to make adjustments to the icons in question so that imagery that may appear similar will become unique.
Regardless of where the icons in The First Descendant were actually based, it was clear that the game drew a lot of inspiration from Destiny 2. The developers of the former also deployed a hotfix that added the "Start Public Operation" function to Infiltration Operations (Hard).
Similar Icons Controversy
The issue with The First Descendant's icons first came to light earlier this month when a report noted that there were too many similar-looking ones with Destiny 2. One theory that people were discussing was the possibility that both Nexon and Bungie sourced their icons from the same place, said PCGamer.
This could explain the similarity of the two games' icons while also defending Nexon from any blatant attempts to rip off its fellow looter shooter game developer. However, many people did not believe this because they questioned why a major studio like Bungie uses third-party icon sets.
Also, Bungie artist Lyndon Willoughby seemed to have indirectly and unmistakably shot down that particular idea. He said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that "Bungie icon artists are a super-crew of talented folks with original ideas and sharp instincts."
However, some fans found what seems to have been the root of the problem, which is an icon database known as Iconduck that features a Destiny Icons set.
This includes 204 items which are all supposedly open sourced with a Creative Commons Zero v1.0 Universal license. This means that they can be used for personal and commercial purposes, according to IGN.
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