Can you play The First Descendant solo?

The First Descendant is advertised as a cooperative looter-shooter with no PvP elements, but playing with others isn’t for everyone. This begs the question as to whether you can play solo—and we have the answer.

After several beta tests, The First Descendant launched as a free-to-play title on July 2 and has quickly attracted hundreds of thousands of players, making matchmaking quick and easy. But still, you may want to fly solo.

If you’re keen to know whether you’re restricted to multiplayer only or whether you can play on your own, we’ve got all the details you need.

Can you play The First Descendant single-player?

Yes, while The First Descendant is built as a cooperative title, you can play single-player. While completing the smaller missions in an area, you’ll likely have been on your own, unless you created a party with friends. But from time to time, you may be paired with nearby players doing the same mission.

Some missions will start with a matchmaking option, where you can choose to start the mission private or public. In a private session, you can play solo or invite players of your choosing, whereas a public session will pair you with random players.

While it’s technically possible to play solo in these sessions, I’d recommend sticking with public matchmaking and only using the private option if you have select players you want to invite. This is due to the fact that some enemies take a while to defeat and you may run out of ammo.

For example, I was in a public session for a mission and completely ran out of ammo and there were no supply points nearby. As I was with other players, I was able to loot the enemies they killed. If I had been on my own, I likely would have failed the mission.