Nexon’s new third-person sci-fi free online looter shooter, The First Descendants, is a lot like a bowl of mediocre macaroni and cheese. I promise the first sentence at the end of this article will make sense.

The First Descendants was released earlier this month for PS5, Xbox Series These special people – Descendants – are the key to saving humanity, and they use their abilities (as well as weapons and explosives) to fight off invading alien forces and giant interdimensional monsters. I wish I could tell you more, but I don’t have any more to say. If this setting sounds a lot like other sci-fi movies and games, then you’re getting what The First Descendant really is. It combines everything that’s come before into a fun, but heavy, package.

Every bit of The First Descendant feels like it’s been stolen from other existing live-service shooters, like Destiny, Warframe, The Division, and Anthem. You blast through levels like a space ninja in Warframe, the combat is as tight and snappy as The Division’s third-person gunfights, and many of the powers and abilities feel like they’re directly inspired by Destiny. (And parts of the game literally look like they were stolen from Bungie’s FPS…)

The First Descendant also lacks a consistent art style beyond “just doing what other games have done.” The post-apocalyptic world you explore in the game’s main campaign doesn’t really suit anime heroes and their various cosmetic items. Similarly, First Descendant has a strange collection of enemy designs, made up of baddies taken from games like Anthem, Destiny, and Outriders. Some enemies look and act like living creatures, while others are more mechanical and robotic. Some look like weird space zombies, and some just wear protective gear. I had no idea who I was fighting or how they were connected, except that they seemed to be part of a huge evil alien empire. And you didn’t need to know what you were shooting at, because most things disappear quickly.

Like all the games mentioned so far, First Descendant can be played alone or online with other players. Like Destiny, the open world you visit contains other players that you can play with or ignore. In these open worlds, you’ll be given 3-4 missions where you have to protect something, kill, collect, destroy a target, etc. You repeat until you reach a larger, more complex mission, also called an “operation” or a “fateful attack”. And once you’ve completed all that, the story continues a bit and you repeat the whole thing in a new location.

It’s boring, and if you’ve ever played a live-service looter shooter, you’ve played this song and dance a thousand times. When it comes to story, graphics, enemies, and gameplay, First Descendant doesn’t break any new ground or try to offer anything unique. It checks all the boxes that need to be filled to be considered an online RPG shooter, and doesn’t have much else going for it.

And yet I keep playing. It’s my job, and not just because I have to play First Descendant. No, I’ll keep playing it, even though there are other games I’d rather play. And not just because the game’s grappling hook feels good and makes traversing an otherwise boring world a bit more fun (though that helps, too). It’s not just because I want to see the numbers go up, though Nexon’s shooter has a lot to offer for those who like that sort of thing. The First Descendants is like a bowl of macaroni and cheese from a cheesy restaurant. Yes, I’ll explain the metaphor at the end.

My theory is that eating warm macaroni and cheese isn’t going to piss you off too much if the pasta is boiled and there’s cheese in the bowl. Of course, you can do a lot more with macaroni and cheese. You can add bacon, breadcrumbs, different types of cheese, experiment with pasta, spices, sauces, etc. But in its most simple, rules-following, no-frills form, a bowl of macaroni is delicious and I eat it every time without complaint.

This is what it looks like when I play First Descendant. It feels like eating a bowl of delicious macaroni and cheese. I’m having fun at the moment. I’m happy to eat and play. Yes, Mac & Cheese! Yay, quick combat and loot! But as soon as I move away from the first descendant, I quickly forget about it. It offers a certain amount of comfort, but ultimately offers nothing memorable or exciting. It does what it’s supposed to do, meets all the requirements, and that’s it. Like a boring bowl of macaroni you eat at a fast food restaurant or a friend’s house: enough to make you happy, but quickly forgettable.

So, do I recommend playing First Descendant? Not really. If you’ve played Destiny, Warframe, or other similar games, there’s nothing new here and it’s barely noticeable. If you’re wasting your time playing other live-service shooters, it might be worth taking a break from those grinds and trying this new shiny grind instead. Still, I don’t think First Descendant will keep these types of players around for long, especially since the endgame treadmill to unlock new characters seems like a terrible grind and Nexon is happy to make you pay for it.