If you’ve been grinding Void missions in The First Descendant for any length of time, you’ve probably picked up weird, glowing amorphous material chunks that won’t open no matter what menu you click through. I spent three hours last week toggling between every inventory and crafting tab trying to figure out how to open amorphous material in The First Descendant before I stumbled on the exact requirement most generic guides skip. It’s not a bug, and you don’t need to spend premium currency to access the loot inside, either – you just need to hit a specific progression milestone and gather a couple of easy-to-farm supporting items.
What You Need Before You Can Open Amorphous Material in The First Descendant
The biggest barrier to decoding amorphous material is a hidden progression gate that doesn’t show up in any item description. You have to complete the “Void Interference” main story mission, which unlocks at player level 22, before the game will let you process these items at all. I made the mistake of hoarding 12 amorphous material pieces before I hit that mission, so don’t waste valuable inventory space on them early if you’re still working through the first three story arcs.
Once you finish that mission, you’ll only need three things to start decoding every amorphous material you pick up:
You don’t need to complete any random side quests to unlock this feature, but if you’re struggling to beat the Void Interference boss, I recommend running a couple of co-op missions first to pick up a few better weapon mods to boost your damage. It’s a surprisingly tough fight for new players, and you’ll save a lot of time by bringing a squad or better gear before you attempt it.
Step-by-Step Process to Open Your Amorphous Material
Once you have all the required items, the process is actually super straightforward, but it’s hidden in a menu most players don’t check regularly. A lot of people assume you open it directly from your inventory, which is why so many players get stuck with piles of unopened material in their storage for weeks.
First, head to the main base and walk to the Void Processing Terminal near the crafting station – it’s the glowing blue console right next to the NPC that sells Void keys, so you can’t miss it. Interact with the terminal, and select the “Amorphous Material Decoding” option from the dropdown menu. You’ll see all the amorphous material pieces you have in your inventory and base storage show up on the left side of the screen.
Select the one you want to open, and the terminal will automatically pull the required Unstable Void Key and Void Residue from your storage. Hit confirm, and the decoding process takes 30 seconds real time – you don’t have to wait in the menu, you can go do other stuff around the base or queue for another mission while it finishes. Once it’s done, you’ll get a notification on the top right of your screen to collect your rewards. I’ve opened 27 of these so far, and I’ve never had the process fail as long as I had all the required items on hand before I started.
What Rewards You Can Expect From Amorphous Material
A lot of players skip opening amorphous material because they think it only gives common crafting parts, but that’s not true at all. The rewards scale with the level of the amorphous material you picked up, so higher level Void missions give you higher tier loot when you decode them. It’s one of the most underrated sources of endgame gear in the entire game, especially for free-to-play players who don’t want to spend money on loot boxes.
The most common rewards are rare weapon mods, crafting materials for endgame character gear, and exclusive Void skins that you can’t get anywhere else in the game. I got my favorite Viessa skin from an amorphous material I picked up on a random tier 4 Void run last month, so it’s worth putting in the small effort to decode them. You can also get premium currency drops occasionally – roughly 5% of all decodes give 100-500 free Caliber, which is the premium currency you usually have to buy with real money.
The only downside is that you can’t pick which reward you get, it’s all random, but even the worst drops are worth more than the cost of the materials you use to decode them. If you’re trying to build a specific endgame weapon, decoding amorphous material is one of the fastest ways to get the rare crafting parts you need, since you don’t have to farm specific boss drops for hours on end.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Working With Amorphous Material
I made almost all of these mistakes when I first started decoding amorphous material, so you don’t have to waste time or resources repeating them. Small changes to how you farm and decode these items can drastically increase how much rare loot you walk away with every week.
First, don’t hoard low level amorphous material once you hit level 30. Low level material only gives low tier rewards that are useless for endgame builds, so you’re better off selling it for credits instead of wasting Void Keys on it. Void Keys are much harder to farm than Void Residue, so save them exclusively for level 30+ amorphous material drops that give endgame rewards.
Second, don’t forget to check your storage for Void Residue before you run Void missions to get keys. I’ve had multiple times where I had a key ready to go, but I was 5 Void Residue short, so I had to run another whole mission just to get the last few pieces. It’s a small annoyance, but it adds up if it happens every other run.
Third, don’t decode amorphous material one at a time if you have multiple pieces. If you decode three or more at once, you get a 20% bonus reward chance, so you’re way more likely to get rare drops and premium currency. I used to decode them one by one until a clan mate told me about the bonus, and my rare drop rate went up almost 30% once I started decoding in batches. You also don’t need to carry all your amorphous material in your personal inventory – the terminal pulls directly from your base storage, so you can store it all there to save inventory space for mission loot.
Figuring out how to open amorphous material in The First Descendant feels confusing at first, but once you unlock the Void Processing Terminal and gather the required materials, it’s one of the most rewarding side activities in the game. You don’t have to spend real money or grind for dozens of hours to get great drops, either – just a couple of short Void runs are enough to get the materials you need for a decode. If you’ve been sitting on a pile of amorphous material in your storage, take 10 minutes to run a quick tier 3 Void mission to get a key, and you’ll walk away with loot that will make your character way stronger for endgame content.