The First Descendant Turns It Down: No More Startup Sound Blast

If you've launched The First Descendant on Xbox or PlayStation since its recent console release, you probably remember it more with your ears than your eyes. The startup sequence played at a wildly disproportionate volume, so much so that The Loadout, the outlet we sourced the core information for this piece from, says they experienced it firsthand with their headphones on. That little bit of torture every time you booted up the game is now a thing of the past: a new update is available that fixes the problem.

It might seem like a minor detail next to balance changes, new content or performance issues, but it isn't. The startup is the first thing you experience every time you sit down to play, and if that first contact is a blast of sound that makes you rip your headset off, your perception of the product's quality takes a hit. On top of that, according to the same source, the patch doesn't arrive alone: it comes with a handful of other welcome hotfixes.

What You Need to Know

• The First Descendant has received a new update that is available now.
• The patch fixes the excessive volume of the startup sequence, which hit players using headphones especially hard.
• The issue was mostly noticed by players on the recently released Xbox and PlayStation versions.
• The update also includes other hotfixes, although the audio fix is the one grabbing the most headlines.

A Small Detail with a Huge Impact

In competitive play, audio isn't decoration: it's information. Lots of people play with their headphone volume fairly high so they don't miss footsteps, reloads, enemy abilities or team callouts. That's exactly why a startup with badly balanced audio punishes the players who take the most care with their setup. You tune everything to hear what matters clearly, and the game greets you with a blast you never asked for.

There's also a hearing health angle that the industry tends to underestimate. An unexpected volume spike through closed-back headphones isn't just annoying; repeated session after session, it's exactly the kind of exposure you want to avoid. Because the problem affected the start screen, which you go through every time you play, there was no way to dodge it other than turning the volume down before launching and back up afterward, an absurd ritual for a title that aims to keep players around for the long haul.

What About the Rest of the Patch?

The Loadout mentions that the update brings other welcome fixes, but the information we're working from doesn't list them one by one. So we're not going to speculate about what's in it: if you play regularly, we recommend checking the official patch notes to find out exactly what has changed and whether it affects your build or your playstyle.

Our Take

Here at Underworld Lordz, we're clear on this one: we welcome the fix, but it shouldn't have been necessary. Normalizing the volume of a startup sequence is about as basic as quality control gets for any launch. The fact that something like this made it to consoles and forced the press and the community to call it out says a lot about how rushed ports can sometimes be. A live-service game lives on first impressions, and this one wasn't exactly great.

That said, credit where it's due: the complaints were heard, pun intended, and the problem was fixed. For competitive players, this means getting back to a clean routine: boot up, jump in and focus on what matters without reaching for the volume wheel every time. It's not a change that will shift the meta, but it does improve the day-to-day experience, and that counts too.

For content creators, this case offers a lesson that goes beyond The First Descendant. An audio spike on stream doesn't just blow out your own ears: it gets sent straight to your entire audience and stays recorded in the VOD. Even though this game has already fixed it, we recommend always keeping a limiter or compressor on the game audio track in your streaming software. Don't rely on every studio doing its homework; protect your ears and your community's.

What Do You Think?

Did you get hit by the infamous thunderous startup, or did you escape it by playing on speakers? Do you think polish issues like this should hold back a launch, or are you fine as long as they fix them later? Drop by the team chat or our Discord and tell us: what's the worst audio jump scare a video game has ever given you?