There’s nothing better than tearing through hordes of invaders or taking down a colossal Interceptor boss alongside a crew of friends in The First Descendant. I spent my first 10 hours grinding solo before I realized I was missing out on 30% extra loot and way faster mission clear times, but I fumbled with the menu for 15 minutes trying to figure out how to invite friends the first descendant before I got it right. This guide walks you through every step, no matter if you play on PC, PlayStation, or Xbox, plus fixes for the most common invite bugs players run into. You won’t have to waste time scrolling through confusing menus or troubleshooting random errors alone.
How to Invite Friends in The First Descendant Across All Platforms
The game supports full crossplay across PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, so you can play with friends no matter what device they use. The core invite process is almost identical across all platforms, with only small differences for platform-specific overlays. Before you try to send an invite, make sure you’ve finished the opening prologue first, as multiplayer is locked until you complete the first story mission and gain access to the main hub.
If you’re playing on Steam, you can also import your Steam friends list directly from the Social tab, so you don’t have to search for Nexon IDs if your friends already have their accounts linked. For PlayStation and Xbox players, you can also invite friends directly from your platform’s overlay if you don’t want to navigate the in-game social menu. Just note that crossplay invites will always require you to add someone via their Nexon ID first, even if you’re already friends on your platform of choice. You can find your own Nexon ID in the Account tab of the settings menu if you need to share it with other players.
Fixes for Common Friend Invite Errors in The First Descendant
Even if you follow all the steps correctly, you might run into random errors that stop invites from going through. I’ve dealt with almost every possible invite bug during my 80+ hours of playtime, so these fixes work for 99% of the issues players report. The most common error is the generic “invite failed” pop-up that gives you no extra context for what went wrong.
Always make sure you and your friends are on the same game patch version, because outdated builds will prevent invites from working entirely. The game auto-updates on most platforms, but sometimes PC players will pause updates to play offline and forget to install the latest patch before going online. If you get the invite failed error, first check that crossplay is enabled for both players in the Settings > Game menu. Game updates will sometimes reset crossplay settings to disabled without warning, so this is the first thing you should check.
If your friends aren’t showing up in your friends list at all, that’s almost always a server sync issue. You can fix this by closing the game completely and restarting it, or logging out of your Nexon account and logging back in. If you still can’t send invites, make sure the person you’re trying to invite doesn’t have their privacy settings set to block all invites. You can adjust your own privacy settings to allow invites from anyone, friends only, or no one, which is helpful if you get random spam invites when you’re grinding solo.
Perks of Playing With Friends in The First Descendant
You can play almost all of the game’s content solo if you prefer, but playing with friends unlocks so many extra benefits that it’s worth at least teaming up for endgame content. The biggest perk is the loot bonus: you get a 10% increase to rare loot drop rates for every party member you have, up to 30% for a full 4-person squad. That might not sound like a lot at first, but it cuts down grind time for legendary mods and descendant upgrades by almost half.
Playing with friends also unlocks exclusive co-op weekly challenges that give you premium currency and rare cosmetic skins you can’t get any other way. These challenges usually require you to complete specific missions with a squad, and the rewards are well worth the small time investment. Missions also scale to match your party size, so you won’t have to deal with overpowered enemies that take forever to kill, and the reward pools scale up too.
For example, high-difficulty Void Interceptor boss fights have mechanics that require multiple players to split up and disable different shield generators at the same time. I’ve tried to beat these fights solo dozens of times, and it’s almost impossible even with a fully maxed out descendant. With a squad, you can split up to handle different mechanics and beat the boss in half the time, and you get way better rewards for your effort. You can also split up to collect resources faster in open world missions, so you can farm crafting materials in a fraction of the time it would take solo.
Best Party Setups for Co-op Missions
Once you get your squad together, you don’t have to stick to a strict meta if you’re just playing for fun. Most low to mid-tier missions work fine with any combination of descendants, and you can experiment with different roles as you unlock more characters. But if you’re farming endgame content for rare loot, a balanced party setup will cut your clear times way down and reduce the chance of wiping mid-mission.
I recommend running at least one support descendant like Viessa, who can heal the whole squad and apply damage buffs to make your damage dealers more effective. Pair that with one high-damage dealer like Ajax, who can melt boss health bars fast, and one crowd control character like Gley who can clear hordes of small enemies before they overwhelm your squad. The fourth slot can be a flex pick, either another damage dealer for faster boss kills or a second support for extra survivability if you’re running a very high difficulty mission.
Make sure you communicate with your team before starting a mission to align on what loot you’re all farming, so you don’t waste time rolling for the same mod or material. You can also split up loot picks so everyone gets the items they need for their builds, which avoids unnecessary conflicts. If you’re playing with randoms instead of friends, you can use the in-game ping system to mark objectives or loot spots if you don’t want to use voice chat.
At the end of the day, The First Descendant is designed to be played with other people, and learning how to invite friends the first descendant is the first step to unlocking all of its best content. You don't have to grind every mission with a full squad if you prefer solo play sometimes, but having a few friends on call for tough boss fights or rare loot farms makes the entire experience way more fun. If you still run into issues with invites after following this guide, drop a comment below and I'll help you troubleshoot.