Breaking Boundaries: A New Era for the Elden Ring Genre? Our Early Access Review

That's it, No Rest for the Wicked is now available in early access on PC (Steam). As a reminder: it's a demanding action-RPG – in the vein of Dark Souls – developed by Moon Studios, the famous team behind the metroidvania Ori. This is therefore a great first for the company, which intends to make an impact by “reinventing” the genre… That’s for sure, the promise is attractive on paper, but in reality, our first preview (last month) left us with some doubts ! So here is the 100-bullet question: has this early access made us change our minds?

Do nothing like the others

In its noble quest to revolutionize action-RPG à la “Souls”, Moon Studios shakes up a lot of things that are worth remembering. Already, a good part of No Rest for the Wicked revolves around Sacrament, a city serving as a hub, which you unlock after beating the first boss. It contains everything an adventurer could dream of (blacksmith, side quests, bounty table) and is revealed as an evolving area that the player can rebuild, improve by gathering the right resources. Here, Moon Studios offers, for example, to renovate the local inn – or to build shortcuts to better navigate Sacrament which is casually rather vast. Eventually, the player will even be able to buy a home that they can personalize like more classic RPGs.

More than welcoming your home, the city is a place that you will see often, whether to progress the scenario (more extensive than in Souls), buy resources or have your equipment repaired. Because yes, in No Rest for the Wicked, death reduces the durability of your equipment and Sacrament is the only place where you can patch it all up! Another difference with Elden Ring: defeated opponents do not come back to life after your failure – but others may arrive depending on the time of day – and there is no magic healing vial here that fills between two attempts. Very concretely, Moon Studios asks you, between two bloody fights, to pick mushrooms and do a bit of cooking at a campfire. Only handmade dishes instantly regenerate a portion of life (a simple ingredient brings it back little by little). And suffice to say that it is almost obligatory in order to stand up to the big monsters.

Some other details for the road. Despite its Diablo-style hack'n'slash appearance, due to its isometric camera, the action of No Rest for the Wicked is very close to Souls! On the other hand, Moon Studios borrows from the genre the rarity of objects – from ordinary to unique – and the taste for co-op. Yes, later in this early access you will be able to roam the island of Sacra with three of your friends. Finally, Moon Studios has chosen completely random loot to make each game “unique”. On this side, there already seems to be a choice, with (aside from bladed weapons) magic.

A mix of genres that hits the mark?

In short, No Rest for the Wicked is a patchwork of quite a few things – and if you're looking for a Dark Souls-like experience, you're in for a surprise. But doing things differently doesn't mean doing them wrong, and Moon Studios proves it: the fights deliver great sensations and the team's incredible artistic direction creates a rare atmosphere… A final aspect which even adds a little “extra” to the exploration which, if not innovative for the genre, does things well! In this early access, we also have the right to some new cutscenes, and the care taken in the staging | the animation commands admiration. Despite everything, after these few hours in early access, we still have some reservations.

As mentioned last month, with its desire to revolutionize the genre, Ori's dads seem to be putting obstacles in the way. At this stage, in particular we have doubts about the way Moon Studios seeks to bring the player back to Sacrament. So yes, it's a central location for the adventure, but returning there because of a missing ingredient or a broken weapon unfortunately feels more like a chore than anything else. And then in a game like this, failure is generally followed by an irrepressible desire for revenge. But here, for now, we have to do… cooking.

Along the same lines, to complete certain quests, No Rest for the Wicked requires you to return to areas that have already been “completed”. Areas which – even if they have been rid of their main boss – still hide things and have even evolved since your last visit! For example: a previously barricaded door is now open, giving access to a new boss. On paper, why not, but the execution is poor again. To join this new adversary, it is impossible to teleport to a nearby checkpoint, even if the latter has been activated (so, there is a lot of fast travel here, but it only connects the most recent teleporter to the one in Sacrament). Just with that, Moon Studios doesn't give us the impression of having mastered the area, no matter how much sweat we left there. Above all: the simple fact of going back so much leaves us perplexed.

It's only early access

Despite everything, there is no need to sound the alarm. The early access model serves well to iron out these kinds of details, and since our first contact, No Rest for the Wicked has made some progress – particularly when it comes to camera placement during combat. Moon Studios lens less likely to zoom | zoom out without warning, which is a good point (you can even adjust the screen shake in the pause menu). That being said, we still don't have a crush on the action phases… With the isometric view, it's as if the clashes were on “a single plane” (no scale effect in the image of a 2D or 3D space). Therefore, whether your opponent is small or huge, it remains a point to go back and forth to.

We also noted concerns related the sometimes cramped terrain which leaves the door open to a lot of inaccuracies (especially since the patterns weapons and rolls are quite ample). It will probably be more complicated for Moon Studios to sort this out, but you never know. For the moment, the duration of No Rest for the Wicked early access is not yet known! As we can learn on Steam, the team wants to give itself time to achieve its “quality objectives” according to feedback from the community. In any case, the first project will be the addition of the 4-player cooperation mode.