No Rest for the Wicked has been burning a hole in the back of my head for a few days now. The new game from indie darlings Moon Studios, makers of the Ori series, is an action role-playing game launching into Early Access.
Despite its difficulty, lack of content, and performance issues, it hasn’t left my thoughts. It’s incredibly satisfying, draped in an incredibly beautiful art style when it works. It’s a staunch departure from the 2D platformers the studio is known for but one the studio describes as its “dream game.” Each frame looks like a moving picture, but that’s where the similarities to Ori begin and end.
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No Rest for the Wicked is closer to Diablo mixed with Soulsborne combat, marrying the top-down perspective with nail-biting and anger-inducing combat. No Rest for the Wicked is off to a decent start, with tense fights and a beautiful world to explore, but it quickly lives up to its Early Access tag with limited content and performance issues.
No Rest for the Wicked takes place in 841, set in a world filled with religious upset and an ever-encroaching plague in the Pestilence. Madrigal Seline has her sights set on the small island of Isola Sacra. You play as a Cerim, a super-powered holy warrior who lands on the island after a shipwreck.
The Madrigal intends to use Sacra to catapult her ambitions, regardless of what the island’s people need or want. So far, the story plays out in absolutely gorgeous cut scenes with stellar voice acting. I’m completely engaged with the various forces at play, and each bit of the story draws me in further. The Early Access launch holds the prologue and first chapter, and I genuinely can’t wait to find out where the story goes next.
The world in No Rest for the Wicked is beautiful, with a day-night cycle that changes the scenery depending on the time. The same area draped in darkness is harrowing and hard to navigate while the light bathes it in the sun, almost making it inviting. The map is a good size so far, with a ton of verticality, adding layers to a single space. The camera work here supports the level design entirely. You’ll need to search spaces that are not immediately obvious to find more treasure chests and other pathways. The platforming can be hit or miss, especially when a slightly misaligned jump can lead to a massive drop or death.
Finding whisper points around the world of No Rest for the Wicked allows you a respawn point. The pathfinding and level design are great, with plenty of discoverable shortcuts and quicker ways through after the initial journey. Once unlocked, These whisper points offer fast travel, allowing you to travel between that current point and Sacrament, the main city. These whisper points are great, but the ability to travel between them is sorely lacking. At one point, I had been losing steadily to a boss for a few hours. I decided to go elsewhere to level up, made progress in a new area, and decided to go back.
The issue is that traveling from one end of the map to another can take too long, especially when you have recently traveled in one direction. It’s annoying running back and forth, completely redoing sections of areas to get back to where you already were. Allowing the player to travel fast, at least from Sacrament to any other unlocked whisper point, would alleviate this a lot. Right now, it feels like padding. Fireplaces are also strewn about, where the player can cook. These are incredibly important and are genuinely life-saving in the proper spot, especially when running low on supplies.
Sacrament, the hub city of No Rest for the Wicked, is massive and sprawling. In the first few hours, it’s easy to get lost. There’s a lot to do here, from resting, buying new equipment, upgrading, buying and furnishing lodging, accepting timed challenges, and more. There’s a lot to sink your teeth into. Resource gathering goes hand in hand with upgrading the city, as the smith requires different materials to upgrade the city. I quickly upgraded the tower where your initial stay is, rebuilding the broken stairs to allow quicker access to the city’s marketplace.
One of the major elements in Sacrament is Captain Randolph, who oversees daily and weekly quests. There are a set number of story quests to complete, but he holds unique and timed challenges that change daily or weekly. The rewards here range from gear to money, allowing new fights and unique enemies to encounter. It does a good job of offering a fresh drip feed of content while the rest of the game is being developed.
Captain Randolph’s quests are also one of the only ways to get ichor, which you use to upgrade your character. Ichor is an important resource that, so far, feels way too scarce. Each defeated boss will drop it, but there are only three major bosses. Some of Randolph’s quests will drop it. Once you have it, visiting the Watcher will let you choose from several upgrades, including more weapon slots, resource slots, item slots, and so on. So far, the game’s item economy isn’t very well balanced, as you’re constantly drowning in new items and resources.
There isn’t an item encumbrance system, but the locked slots are almost as bad. Dropping resources you may need later in favor of items that may help you heal is never fun. The ichor needed to properly upgrade your character to what will hopefully feel decent is too great for the amount you can get steadily at this point.
The combat is not for the faint of heart. You’ll become heavily reliant on your parries and dodges, with enemies quickly killing you if you’re not careful. Weight plays a careful part in the equation, changing how your dodges work depending on your gear. A light build will have you dashing around quickly, while a heavy build brings a slow and clunky dodge-roll. No set classes exist, but the weapons are present depending on your stats. Giant claymores that hit hard but swing slow are tied to your strength stats, while a ranged bow is reliant on your dexterity.
No Rest for the Wicked has 8eightstats that require upgrading to build your character the way you want. There’s the standard mix of strength, defense, dexterity, and others. The most unique is the focus meter, which acts as the game’s magic/ability meter. It fills throughout the battle, and each weapon has different specials that have a different set cost. A fireball might cost 100, while a quick dagger strike may be 50. You can take abilities off weapons, destroying them in the process, to slot them on others. Your stamina meter also matters incredibly, as the amount of dodges and attacks you can do before getting tired is tied to it.
The introductory area does a good job of offering a good mix of weapons to try out and master. I started with a sword and shield, trying to balance a good mix of offense and defense. I was getting my ass beat. Next, I stumbled across a staff that let me shoot off a fireball with enough MP gained from battle. A good mix of getting in close, attacking, then popping out and firing off a ball of flames quickly became apparent…until multiple enemies decided to have one another’s backs.
The claymore became my best friend, trading in speed for huge swings that could cleave through multiple enemies. Unlocking a second weapon slot and finding twin flaming daggers became my favorite kit. Using the claymore to knock an enemy over, then swapping to the daggers as I got in close for a few quick hits, is always a blast.
While you don’t lose any experience when you die, No Rest for the Wicked does have a slightly annoying degradation and repair system. Get hit or die enough, and your items will start to lose their quality and can break. A smith in town can repair your gear, but that isn’t always easy if you’re out in the wilds. Thankfully, Moon Studios seems to be listening to feedback constantly, with a hotfix already tuning the systems to be more forgiving.
The housing system is an interesting add-on that doesn’t feel fully realized yet. After a certain point, it’ll unlock, and you can choose from one of three dwellings to buy. They’re costly and will take a while to save up. Once you purchase them, you can craft and buy furniture and chests to store gear. At this point, that’s the extent of the housing. More features or different ways to interact, along with more options for furnishing, are needed because, so far, it doesn’t feel like it compliments the rest of the game much.
Performance, on the other hand, has been completely hit or miss. I’ve been rotating between the Steam Deck and my PC. On Deck, it holds a decently stable 30 fps, with some drops to 15-20 in cut scenes or heavy action. It’s entirely playable, but it has crashed on me a handful of times. I lost a bit of progress in each crash. It was nothing substantial, but it also failed shortly after a save. I can see losing more progress being frustrating. The few fixes that came through have already made the Deck experience better, and to be fair, it hasn’t been verified yet at the time of writing. Moon Studios seems committed to making the experience as good as possible on handheld PCs.
On PC, the experience with No Rest for the Wicked is more stable but still lacking. The game struggles to maintain a constant 60fps, and frame drops in the middle of a fight can be life-or-death. Moon Studios is listening to feedback and seems to be working through fixes quickly, so hopefully, it’ll stabilize as the updates hit.
No Rest for the Wicked has decent content for its opening chapter. The story quests are interesting and will keep you busy for a decent length. Owning and decorating your home can be fun but ultimately has no real impact on gameplay. The map has a fog of war that opens as you explore but will take over areas again that you haven’t explored in a while. When this happens, enemies respawn, and new loot emerges.
Between this and the weekly challenges, they offer good ways to engage with the current environment, but I can see these getting stale with time. The endgame roguelike dungeons, known as the Cerim’s Crucible, offer one way to further engage, with more on the way. Moon Studios has offered a road map with a content plan, including multiplayer.
No Rest for the Wicked is off to a promising start. With great combat, a gorgeous world, and an intriguing story, there’s much to dive into, even in its Early Access form. Ironing out the performance issues and having a good flow of content will be critical to the game’s long-term survival. I’m excited for the adventure to come with future updates.
No Rest for the Wicked is out now in Early Access on PC.
