The First Descendant Guide – How to Level Up Descendants and Weapons Quickly

In The First Descendant, XP is almost as valuable as Gold or crafting materials. It’s necessary to level up your Descendants, increasing their mod capacity, health and other stats. As they level up, their skills also improve and become stronger. However, XP is also necessary for increasing the proficiency of your weapons. Leveling them up alongside a Descendant with basic Module slots also garners XP for your Mastery Level, unlocking even more bonuses and access to other Modules.

However, leveling up all the different weapons and Descendants one at a time can be a drag. Fortunately, there’s a farming method available early on to make the entire ordeal more palatable.

How to Quickly Level Up Descendants and Weapons

First, you’ll want to unlock Special Operations, available to the left of the initial spawn in Albion HQ. Look for Kingston Albion Resource Defense, a horde mode-like activity, and load in. Matchmake with other players for much faster clearing. Enemies spawn in three main areas – position a player near each and go to town on them.

If you’re leveling up weapon proficiency, use Bunny. Her electric aura allows for quickly slaying enemies as soon as they spawn. When leveling Descendants, the Ultimate SMG Thunder Cage is great since its chance to cause an electric explosion can damage nearby foes. A high-DPS machine gun also works wonders since you spend less time reloading.

Check the middle section constantly to ensure the one bomber enemy that spawns doesn’t slip past and damage the defense point.

Once you’ve completed seven waves, extract from the mission and do it again. Perhaps the only downside is the delay between enemies spawning during waves, but the pay-off is well worth it.

Note that upgrading weapons is different from leveling their proficiency. For the former, you need a higher-level weapon and a Phase Exchanger. Go to the Workbench, then the Weapon Level Transmission tab, select the lower-level weapon, then the higher-level weapon.

Select the Weapon Level Transmission option. The Phase Exchanger and higher-level weapon will be consumed, bringing your desired gun to the latter’s level. Ultimate weapons require Precision Phase Exchangers – both types can be crafted at Research using materials from dismantling weapons. Since they’ll take some time, it’s best to have a couple running between missions.

The First Descendant is available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. Check out even more tips and tricks here.