If you’ve spent dozens of hours grinding levels, unlocking skills, and farming better gear for your favorite Descendant, you’ve almost certainly asked one question: can you prestige in The First Descendant. Prestige systems are a core part of most modern looter shooters, letting players reset their progress in exchange for exclusive rewards, permanent buffs, and bragging rights among friends. It makes sense players would want to know if TFD follows the same model, especially once you hit the current max level and feel like you’ve run out of progression goals to chase.
Can You Prestige in The First Descendant? The Short Answer
The short answer is yes, though the feature is officially called "Ascension" in The First Descendant’s in-game menus, not prestige. It works almost exactly the same as the prestige systems you might know from other looter shooters, though: you reset a single character’s level back to 1, wipe their assigned skill points, and unlock a set of permanent rewards in exchange. A lot of new players assume the reset is account-wide, but that’s not the case. You can choose to prestige each individual Descendant separately, so you don’t have to reset your main if you only want to test the system on a secondary character you don’t use as often.
You also don’t lose any account-wide unlocks when you prestige. All your skins, weapon blueprints, in-game currency, and cross-character progression stays completely intact. The only things that reset are the specific character’s level, skill point allocation, and character-specific quest progress, which you can easily re-earn as you level back up.
Requirements to Unlock the Ascension/Prestige Feature
You can’t access the prestige feature as soon as you start the game, even if you rush to level up as fast as possible. There are a few non-negotiable requirements you have to hit first, all designed to make sure you’re ready for the harder endgame content that opens up after you reset:
- Reach max character level 40 on the specific descendant you want to reset
- Complete all 12 core story missions for that character’s mastery path
- Have at least 500,000 credit reserves to cover the one-time unlock fee for your first reset
- Clear the "Void Rift Challenge" on normal difficulty or higher at least once
The 500,000 credit fee is only required for your first ever prestige across all characters, so you won’t have to pay it again if you reset multiple Descendants later on. The Void Rift requirement is there for a good reason, too: post-prestige missions have far tougher enemies, and clearing the rift proves you have the build skill to keep up even when your level is reset to 1. You can check if you meet all the requirements by visiting the Ascension terminal in the back of the main base camp, next to the weapon modification station.
Rewards You Earn for Prestiging a Descendant
A lot of players hesitate to prestige because they don’t want to lose all the hard work they put into leveling their favorite character. But the rewards you get far outweigh the temporary grind of re-leveling, especially if you plan to play endgame content long term.
First, you get permanent stat boosts for the Descendant you reset. Each prestige gives you a 5% increase to all damage dealt and 10% extra max health, and these boosts stack up to 5 total resets per character. That means a fully prestiged character is 25% stronger and has 50% more health than a non-prestiged version, a massive difference for endgame raids and high-difficulty Void Rifts.
You also get exclusive prestige skins for each character you reset, with unique glowing visual effects that can’t be unlocked any other way. These skins are account-wide, so even if you reset a different character later, you can still use the prestige skins you earned on any playthrough. You’ll also unlock a small account-wide XP boost after your first prestige, giving all your characters 2% extra XP from all sources. It doesn’t sound like much at first, but it adds up fast when you’re grinding multiple characters up to max level. Finally, you unlock access to prestige-only hard mode missions, which drop legendary modules and weapon skins that don’t appear in regular mission loot pools.
Pro Tips to Make Prestiging Faster and Less Frustrating
Re-leveling a character from 1 to 40 might sound like a huge chore, but it doesn’t have to be. There are a few simple tricks you can use to cut your grind time almost in half, so you can get back to playing endgame content as fast as possible.
First, stock up on XP boosters before you hit the reset button. You can earn 2x XP boosters from daily login rewards, event challenges, or purchase them for relatively cheap with in-game credits. Activate your booster right after you reset, so every kill, mission completion, and collectible you pick up counts for double XP.
Run group missions whenever possible. Every player in your squad adds a 30% XP bonus to all mission rewards, so a full 4-person squad gets almost double the XP of a solo run. Most of the TFD community is happy to help with prestige grinds, so you won’t have trouble finding a squad in the in-game looking for group tool.
Don’t waste time grinding open world mobs for the first 20 levels. Story missions and side quests give 10x more XP per minute than farming random enemies in the open world, so prioritize those first until you hit level 20. You should also hold onto your best legendary weapons before you reset, because you keep all your account-wide gear even after you prestige. Using a max-level legendary weapon at level 1 lets you one-shot most low-level enemies, making the first 15 levels fly by in less than an hour.
I learned that last tip the hard way. I sold all my low-level legendaries before my first prestige thinking I wouldn’t need them anymore, and I had to grind through the first 10 levels with a common grey rifle. It took me twice as long as it should have, so don’t make that same mistake.
At the end of the day, if you were wondering can you prestige in The First Descendant, the answer is a clear yes, and it’s one of the best ways to get more out of your time playing the game. You don’t have to prestige if you’re happy playing regular missions with your level 40 character, but if you want to chase the strongest builds, exclusive cosmetics, and the toughest endgame content, it’s 100% worth the small amount of extra grind. If you’ve already gone through the prestige process for one of your Descendants, feel free to share your own favorite grind tips in the comments to help other players out.