I still remember the first time I saw Bunny in action: I was stuck on a level 20 void rift run, and a random teammate playing Bunny zipped around the map clearing mobs faster than my entire team combined, finishing the run 8 minutes under the time limit. I immediately went home and spent 3 hours grinding to unlock her, making every possible mistake along the way, so I know exactly what not to do if you want to get her fast. A lot of new players reach out asking how do you unlock bunny in the first descendant, and it's not as complicated as some community posts make it sound, but there are a few easy-to-miss steps that can delay your grind by hours if you don't know what to look for. I've unlocked her on three separate accounts for friends over the last few months, so I've got the process down to a science, and I'll walk you through every step, plus share tricks to cut your grind time almost in half.
How Do You Unlock Bunny in The First Descendant: Prerequisite Steps First
Before you can even pick up Bunny's unlock quest, there are a few small boxes you have to tick first, and skipping any of these will leave you wandering the hub looking for a quest that doesn't exist. First, you have to finish the full prologue tutorial and unlock the main Albion hub area. The prologue takes most new players around 45 minutes to finish if you don't skip cutscenes, so if you're just starting the game, you can knock that out in one short play session.
You have to be at least player rank 15 to pick up Bunny's unlock quest, so if you're still lower than that, spend a couple of runs doing resource farming or repeatable side missions to rank up fast. I usually recommend running the "Supply Run: West Plain" repeatable mission to rank up fast, it only takes 5 minutes per run and gives you extra silver and materials you can use later for Bunny's unlock. You also need to complete the "Void Invasion: West Plain" main story quest, that's the trigger that makes Bunny's quest appear on your mission board in the south wing of the Albion hub. If you skipped story quests to grind ranks first, you'll need to go back and finish that one first, there's no way around it.
Required Materials for Bunny's Unlock Quest
Once you pick up the quest from the NPC in the south wing of Albion, you'll get a list of four specific materials you need to collect to turn in before you can access her final unlock mission. None of these materials are super rare, but some have very specific drop locations that a lot of new players don't know about, so I've broken down exactly where to get each one below.
- 12x Bunny Core Fragments: Dropped exclusively from the Void Boss "Storm Chaser" that spawns in the West Plain region during level 20+ void rifts. You'll only get 2-3 per kill on normal difficulty, so you'll need to run the rift 4-6 times total to get all 12.
- 40x Lightning Element Crystals: Farmable from lightning-type mobs in the Thunder Valley zone, or purchasable from the hub material vendor for 500 silver each if you're short on time. I usually get 10-15 per 10 minute run through Thunder Valley, so you can knock this part out in under an hour tops.
- 25x Enhanced Mechanical Parts: Reward from completing daily repeatable defense missions in the Central Outpost, or dismantling rare tier weapons you don't use. If you've been playing for a week or two already, you probably have a pile of these sitting in your inventory already.
- 1x Unlock Permission Slip (Rare): Given as a one-time reward for finishing the "Help the Refugee Camp" side quest line in West Plain. If you already did that quest and lost the permission slip somehow, you can buy a replacement from the hub general store for 10,000 silver.
Running the Storm Chaser void rift on hard difficulty doubles your chance of getting extra fragments per run, so it's worth teaming up with a couple of other players to knock those runs out fast, even if you feel like you can handle it on normal alone. I tried farming the fragments on normal my first time, and it took me almost twice as long as it did when I switched to hard mode with a group. For the permission slip, a lot of players miss the "Help the Refugee Camp" side quest because it's tucked away in a small camp on the far east side of West Plain, off the main story path. The quest line only takes 20 minutes to finish, so it's worth doing as soon as you hit rank 12 to have the permission slip ready when you hit rank 15.
Beating Bunny's Final Unlock Mission
Once you turn in all the materials, you'll unlock the exclusive "Bunny's Trial" mission, which is a 15 minute wave defense mission set in an abandoned research facility. The mission has three waves of mobs, ending with a mini-boss fight against a prototype combat droid. You don't have to do anything special to unlock the mission, it will pop up immediately in your active quest list as soon as you hand in the last material.
You don't need to bring a meta team for this mission, but having at least one healer or support character will make the final fight way less frustrating. I tried to solo it the first time on normal, and I almost failed the last wave because the droid has a one-shot charge attack that catches you off guard if you're not paying attention. The main thing to watch for during the trial is the three power conduits around the map: you have to keep at least one active at all times, or the mission resets immediately. A lot of players get so focused on killing mobs that they forget to repair the conduits when they get damaged, so assign one person on your team to watch them if you're playing with others.
If you're playing solo, I recommend bringing a long-range weapon to take out the droid's weak points on its shoulders and back, that lets you deal damage without getting close enough to get hit by its charge attack. The mission also has a bunch of hidden health pickups scattered around the map behind crates, so if you're low on health, take a second to look around instead of wasting your revive charge. If you do fail the mission, you don't lose any of the materials you turned in earlier, so you can re-run it as many times as you need until you beat it, no penalty at all.
First Tips for Using Bunny After Unlocking
Once you finish the trial, Bunny will automatically be added to your character roster, and you can swap to her from the character selection screen any time you're in the hub. Don't skip her short character quest line that pops up right after you unlock her, it gives you a free rare grade weapon that's perfectly optimized for her kit, plus 10 extra skill points to spend on her upgrades. A lot of players skip these character side quests, but the rewards are absolutely worth the 15 minutes it takes to finish them.
Bunny's biggest strength is her high movement speed and area-of-effect lightning damage, so she's perfect for speedrunning missions or clearing large crowds of weak mobs in wave defense runs. She does have a couple of weaknesses, though: her defense is really low, so you can't stand in the open and take hits like you can with tank characters like Ajax, and her skills have relatively long cooldowns if you don't build her with cooldown reduction stats. I recommend putting your first 20 skill points into her passive speed boost and her main lightning chain skill first, that makes her way more effective even at low levels, before you have good gear for her.
If you play a lot of multiplayer, Bunny is one of the most requested characters for speedrun groups and void rift runs, so you'll almost never have trouble finding a team once you have her leveled up a bit. I usually pair her with a cooldown reduction mod and a movement speed mod, that lets me use her dash skill almost constantly, so I can outrun even the fastest boss attacks. She's also really fun to use for open world exploration, because her movement speed buff lets you run across the map way faster than any other starting character, so you can get to hidden chests and secret quests before other players even get to the region.
There you have it, the full process for how do you unlock bunny in the first descendant, with all the little tips and tricks I've picked up from unlocking her multiple times for myself and friends. Don't get discouraged if the core fragment grind feels slow at first, running the void rifts with a group makes it go way faster than you'd expect, and once you have Bunny unlocked, you'll wonder how you ever played the game without her. If you run into any snags during the process, feel free to drop a comment below and I'll help you work through it.