No Rest for the Wicked Early Access Review
Have you ever died during a tutorial? It is kind of comical even if it happens twice (in my defense, I pressed the start button or what I thought was the start button only to find out there was no pause). No, I am not talking about a new Souls game. Would you believe me if I told you this is the latest game from the team known for Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps?
Developed by Moon Studios, No Rest for the Wicked can best be described as a Diablo-esque action RPG coupled with the stamina-based combat popularized by the Souls games and their many clones. You play as a Cerim, one of a group of holy warriors, tasked with purging the “Pestilence.” You arrive on the island of Isola Sacra and while your help is most definitely needed, you get the feeling “your” help is not exactly wanted. For you parents, it is similar to when your toddler explicitly asks for your assistance but yells at you for doing that very thing. Guess what? You help anyway and violently so.
If you are familiar with ARPGs, you will feel right at home when you start up No Rest for the Wicked. There is plenty to explore but what might throw you for a loop is the inclusion of verticality accessed by traditional means such as ladders and steps and leaps of faith across broken structures and climbing over rubble to reach higher points. I have hundreds of hours in the Diablo series and this added depth threw me off. My brain has been conditioned to follow the minimap blindly and when I hit a wall, turn around and find another path. What do you mean, I can climb? Oh, the bridge is broken. I can leap? There are even instances where you tightrope walk your way across a beam that looks barely stable for a rat to crawl. Of course, the game does lend a helping hand with the ability to kick down a ladder so you don’t have to perform a circus act or unlock a door so you can take a more direct route. There is little in the way of hand-holding. You can pin locations on the world map but it is not like anything exists in a straight path. That said, this pushes you to explore just a bit more when you see a ladder that needs to be kicked down or a chest that is just out of reach. I found the best use of the map was to show where I have explored. The world map is covered in the fog of war so to speak but will gradually clear as you travel. This is especially useful when you die, and you will probably die often, as you can get an idea of where you were last. Speaking of dying, prepare to be frustrated, or at the very least, mildly irritated. When you die, you respawn at the last Whisper you encounter. They are similar to world stones in Remnant or bonfires in Dark Souls and serve as a checkpoint. Unlike those games though, enemies that were killed remain dead. The frustration comes in when you realize how long you were playing between reaching checkpoints. I hope you brought your walking shoes.
Combat is similar to that found in Souls games or any game boasting a stamina-based system. You may be a holy warrior but you have no special abilities per se. You only have one move (there is only one attack button so…). Depending on your weapon, pressing attack can do a multitude of things. When I say weapon, I am not referring to type of weapon but the weapon you currently have equipped. You could have two maces and they will attack completely different as would two daggers. Behold:
The system has its pluses and minuses. Personally, I prefer fast weapons, regardless of the game. Those massive swords and hammers in any Souls games always look freaking cool but I am an inpatient and also am terrible at timing. In No Rest for the Wicked, it is just about picking the type of weapon but also figuring out the style. Daggers will all be fast followed by the other one-handed weapons and the larger two-handed weapons will always be slow but hit hard. Unfortunately, you can not tell what attack set the weapon will have until you have them equipped. Chances are you will not notice the difference until you actually change to a different weapon but luckily, you can carry two sets of weapons and you would rarely be replacing both at the same time.
Weapons also come with a charged attack, accomplished by holding down the attack button until your character looks like a wind-up toy and letting go. It does significantly more damage but is a bit harder to pull off especially if the target is moving.
To round out the basics, you can parry and block (if you have a shield). Both abilities require timing, patience, practice, patience, and, did I mention patience? Blocking is simple but parrying can be incredibly frustrating. If you do manage to pull off a parry, you create an opportunity to get behind most enemies and pull off a backstab which is normally reserved for sneak attacks. A backstab does substantially more damage than a regular hit and in some cases, will kill lesser mobs.
A basic moveset is not a Cerim’s only options in combat. Either found or bought at a vendor, you have access to a variety of throwables as well as combat oil which can allow your weapons to deal elemental damage. Lastly, your weapon grants the player access to Rune Arts. These are special attacks that come with the weapon and use focus to activate. Early in the game, the only Rune Arts you will see are the ones found on weapons but as you progress, you will be able to purchase new ones and slot up to 4 in a weapon. Runes can be either offensive or defensive. Some of the offensive ones include Fire Throw (think Thor but fire) or Dual Breaker (a lunging attack with both daggers) and some of the defensive/support runes are Pulse of Health (instantly heal for a set amount) or Repair (restores some durability to weapons and tools). Being able to carry two weapons means potentially having 8 runes at your disposal.
Sacrament serves as the main hub of the game. It truly is a one-stop location as you will find quests/questgives as well as daily and weekly bounties and challenges to undertake, merchants to better equip you in your travels either by selling you goods or upgrading your current gear, and your very own home (purchase is necessary).
Plus, all fast travel in No Rest for the Wicked starts and ends with Sacrament (you can only travel from Sacrament to the last active Whisper or back). This may not seem ideal but you would be surprised at how often you need to head back to Sacrament to dump inventory, turn the daily quests, or go on a shopping trip. Plus, areas do respawn enemies and treasure chests after a set amount of time (unclear the exact timing but the fog of war will reappear on the map over sections you have been to). By not allowing complete freedom over fast travel, the game has a chance to repopulate those areas to allow for farming. Farming? Yup. No, not crops. Raw materials are needed for a variety of upgrades and not just your characters. The various merchants can be upgraded in Sacrament which increases the quality and quantity of their shops. You could also just neglect the town and build all of the crafting implements in your own house. I mean, most of the NPCs hate you anyway so might as well embrace the loner lifestyle, right? Either way, you will still need to farm raw materials which can be found in chests, dropped from enemies, or picked/chopped down/fished/mined. Be careful, your farming tools have durability just like weapons but that is why you can always fast travel back to Sacrament.
No Rest for the Wicked is currently available in Early Access on Steam. But Early Access?!?! Blah blah blah. In the month since launching, there have been 6 hotfixes and 2 patches, all of which had substantial impacts on everything from performance to in-game bugs and issues. That said, I do recommend checking out the specs before buying. The game ran just fine on Steam Deck (I only had one bug in 20+ hours where I fell through the fall repeatedly for a minute) but if you have a PC that meets or surpasses the requirements, No Rest for the Wicked is something else at max settings. The bleak is at maximum bleakness and the dreary is dialed up to 10. Basic settings on Steam Deck vs. max settings on a PC are light and day. It truly is staggering and a sight to behold. In the current state of the game, you can easily put in 25-30 hours (on the lower end) and only the first chapter is available. Future plans include 4-player co-op and multiplayer. There is a lot to be excited for here so why not jump in early and watch Moon Studios put the work into this amazing game.
