Set in the near future, climate change has wrecked the planet, and a man-made extinction event has rendered Earth unsustainable for human life.

In order to survive this catastrophic collapse, a coalition formed from the world’s governments invite people to carry out aptitude tests, resulting in only a few thousand ‘descendants of humanity’ hand-picked to survive the apocalypse, cryogenically suspended in underground bunkers known as Arks until the world recovers from the impending nuclear holocaust. When news breaks of what the coalition intend to achieve, people flock to the government’s tests with demand for sanctuary far outweighing the spaces available. Only a few are selected -- those with certain undisclosed traits. Why were they chosen? What genetic qualities was the government looking for in these individuals to reseed the planet?

The Descendant’s first episode is now free to download for everyone. In addition, players will save 50% on The Descendant Complete Season until April 3rd 2017 @7PM GMT+1.

“Since its official free release on March 22nd, The Descendant Episode 1 had 110,000 new users, with a peak of 8,807 simultaneous players on the first day and sales have jumped more than 1000% week over week. We understand that the current promotion is giving an extra lift to the title so we want to remain cautious, however, we are planning more activities on The Descendant with Microïds who has been a great partner to work with so far!” – Jean-Marc Broyer, President, Gaming Corps.

The existing owners of The Descendant can also now download for free the full soundtrack and the updated digital artbook for the game.

While the descendants sleep through the apocalypse, teams of janitors aren’t quite so lucky – their life underground spent ensuring that each of the Arks, scattered across the world, are carefully maintained so that one day, their precious cargo may wake from its slumber to repopulate the Earth, and build the new world envisioned by the coalition. Centuries pass. Earth becomes habitable again. The descendants are awakened and begin climbing out of storage — except one, Ark-01.

Players awake to explore the dangerous Ark-01 facility, both in the past, immediately after the outbreak of the ecological disaster, and in the present time of the world, seeking any survivors while unraveling a mysterious conspiracy in the process. What do the descendants do next? How do they restart, and "Was humanity worth saving?"

Written by experienced games writer Giles Armstrong (a member of both BAFTA and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, whose credits include Velocity 2X, Here Be Monsters, and the Buzz! series) The Descendant features two intertwining narratives. In the past you’ll play as Mia, an Ark janitor tasked with keeping the precious descendants housed inside Ark-01 alive, while in the present you’ll play as Donnie, one of the investigators trying to rescue any survivors who may still be trapped within the facility.

The Descendant is currently available as digital download through Steam.