Welcome to The First Descendant speedrunning leaderboards and thank you for taking the time to view these guidelines! The goal of this guide is to provide a friendly reminder on what rules pertain to speedruns of this game.

If you need assistance, feel free to contact any of the moderators through Discord.

This leaderboard is considered to be largely glitch-free. If you see a glitch that seems easily avoidable, it is probably not allowed.

This is the general rules of the leaderboard. Please checkout category specific rules before submitting runs to a category

• Speedrunning is the act of playing a video game with the intent of completing it as fast as possible. Runs will be rejected if this intent is not present, at Verifier discretion.

• Original game audio must be audible for the whole run. However, runs with limited or no audio may still be verified at Verifier discretion.

• Your run may not be tool-assisted in any form, including but not limited to macros, scripts, any form of network manipulation, and cheats.

• One FPS cap may be used in a mission (switching outside of missions is permitted). Switching the FPS cap mid-mission, through in-game or external means, is disallowed. Verifiers reserve the right to reject submissions of poor viewing quality.

• Caliber usage is banned.

• HUD should be on.

• Video proof of all encounter POV is required for all runs.

• Each required POV must include the entire run.

• Moderators reserve the right to retroactively reject or remove runs where submitted video evidence is deleted, made private, or otherwise inaccessible.

• Corrupted gameplay or gameplay obscured or impacted by overlays may be rejected.

• Starting with any weapon equipped is allowed, provided that it is not fired or prepped in any way (rules may vary depending on the mission type; refer to category rules).

• Any run utilizing an ability that a player would not have if they had started the activity immediately upon load-in may be rejected at verifier discretion.

• Valid starting positions are limited to where a player could randomly spawn upon loading into the activity (read category rules for exceptions).

See category rules

This section is to provide clarity for how The First Descendant leaderboard moderators conduct business here.

• Verifiers reserve the right to reject a submission for any number of reasons, including, but not limited to, poor quality, rule breaking, cheating, or misrepresentation. Verifiers are NOT allowed to reject runs based on bias of any kind. Contact the verifier that rejected your run for more details on the decision before contacting higher ranking moderators.
• Runs can be verified anywhere from a couple minutes to a maximum of 21 days. Please be patient and allow the verifiers sufficient amount of time to review your submission before contacting them.
• Leaderboard verifications will be placed on hold for up to two weeks after every major update to allow Nexon time to send out hotfixes to address bugs with the update.
• "Testing" a moderator's ability to verify a run is considered a bannable offense from speedrun.com according to site staff. Offenders will be notified to site staff in extreme cases.
• All runs can be disputed with proper claims, including a moderator's run. Please contact a moderator to discuss the legitimacy of a run.

Are exploits, glitches, etc. allowed? If it's going to be patched or if you have any doubts, don't attempt it. Generally, any form of OOB or wall-glitching is not allowed.

Why differentiate Solo and Co-op runs? This allows for a better system of record-keeping and allows players to review runs that fit their playstyle.