What to record when The First Descendant freezes

On October 15 Nexon posted a notice about the screen freezing or the game no longer responding during play on some setups. It says the October 15 update (1.4.5) addressed some causes the team had found. Players have kept reporting the same problem since that update.

Nexon says it has not pinpointed the exact cause, and that the freeze is hard to reproduce reliably even in its own test environment, so the investigation is taking time. That is why player reports matter here. The notice gives no fix, workaround or target date.

The first column is what Nexon's notice asks for. The other two are Kingy's suggestions for making each answer specific enough to compare with other players' reports.

The notice covers two symptoms: the screen freezing, and the game no longer responding. Say which one you saw. If you can, add whether the picture froze while sound continued, whether any input still worked, how long you waited, and whether the game recovered or you had to close it. These are Kingy's suggestions; Nexon's notice does not ask for them, but they make the 'circumstances' line concrete.

If you changed a setting after the freeze, for example turning Frame Generation off, say what you changed and when. Nexon has not recommended changing any setting, and Kingy has not tested whether a change makes a difference. Listing changes keeps the report about the setup that actually froze.

Copy the template, replace each bracket, and delete lines you cannot answer rather than guessing. The completed version below is an illustration of the level of detail, not a real case, and its values do not suggest where or why freezes happen.

1. Template: Platform: [Xbox Series X / Xbox Series S / Steam]. Frame Generation: [On, type / Off]. Other graphics settings: [list them, or attach a photo of the menu]. Content: [mission, dungeon or area name] while [what you were doing]. When: [date, time, time zone]; [before / after] the October 15 update. How often: [number] times in [number] sessions; [same content each time / different content]. What I saw: [screen froze / game stopped responding]; sound [continued / stopped]; [recovered after N seconds / had to close the game]. Changes since: [none / what you changed and when]. Video: [attached / not available].
2. Illustrative example: Platform: Steam. Frame Generation: Off. Other graphics settings: photo of the graphics menu attached. Content: a field mission, during combat with a squad. When: October 16, 21:10, Pacific time; after the October 15 update. How often: 2 times in 3 sessions, both during field missions. What I saw: screen froze, sound continued; had to close the game after about two minutes. Changes since: none. Video: attached, 40 seconds.

Nexon asks for these reports to go to Customer Service. The official news site links to The First Descendant support centre. When Kingy checked on October 16, its Submit Request page sent visitors to a Nexon sign-in with Steam, Xbox and PSN options first. Kingy did not sign in or submit a ticket, so the form's own fields are not described here.

Keep your notes and video until the ticket is answered, in case support asks a follow-up question.

The First Descendant support centre

Nexon's October 15 freeze notice

Nexon’s October 20 notice says RAM use can climb abnormally during play on some PCs, causing frame drops, stutter and, at worst, the game not running properly. The cause is still under investigation; Nexon is looking at a possible link with the NVIDIA driver’s shader cache and calls the issue critical. It does not tie this to the console and Steam freezes above, and Kingy has not tested the workaround.

The workaround is temporary and may not help on every setup. The cache rebuilds the next time you launch, so expect some stutter at first. If a file will not delete because it is in use, skip it.

1. Fully exit The First Descendant.
2. Type %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\NVIDIA\DXCache into the File Explorer address bar.
3. Delete the cache files in that folder, skipping any that are in use.
4. Restart the PC, then launch the game again.

Nexon's October Known Issues post tracks other stability problems separately. One covers crashes on some Intel 13th and 14th generation CPUs, where the game can shut down at launch with an 'Out of video memory' error. Another covers the client being closed by some antivirus programs. Both are crashes or terminations, not the freeze in the October 15 notice, and the known-issues post carries Nexon's own guidance for each.

If the game closes with an error message rather than freezing, read that post first and report the exact error text. If the picture stops or the game stops responding, use the freeze checklist above.

Nexon's October Known Issues post

Hotfix 1.4.5b went out on October 16 at 04:40 PDT on Steam, Xbox and PS5 without a client download. Players already in game return to the title screen and reconnect to receive it.

Its only listed change is a temporary measure for Trials: Protocol 001. With two or more players, the portal could disappear once one player entered the Commander stage. Until Nexon fixes that, only Trials: Protocol 002 is displayed, even though Update 1.4.5 set the two to rotate daily at 00:00 PDT. The hotfix says nothing about freezes, so a freeze after October 16 is still the open issue from the October 15 notice.

Nexon schedules Patch 1.4.6 for October 22 at 00:00 PDT on Steam, Xbox and PS5, previewed as Descendant rebalancing, content improvements and bug fixes; full notes come separately and the schedule can change. The preview does not mention the freeze or the memory issue, so treat both as open until Nexon says otherwise.