No Rest for the Wicked defends its early access: “imagine if Dark Souls had done the same” – News

Early access can be a pain. Releasing a project that is incomplete by nature can quickly provoke harsh reactions since all the nuts are not yet properly tightened. No Rest for the Wicked was no exception to the harsh law of the jungle since its first days on Steam were strewn with very mixed reviews: major performance problems, ravaged ergonomics, ridiculously low weapon durability or various and varied bugs, players quickly let it be known that this lovely first draft still contained too many mistakes. And Moon Studios corrected its draft by dint of hotfixes regular. Which also seems to correct the average ratings on Steam.

No respite for the scoundrels

According to Thomas Mahler, this mixed start justifies the choice of early access. “I think that, given the increasing complexity of video games, early access will tend to become more and more common. From experience, we could never have published Wicked 1.0 without being able to consult all the data collected [depuis une semaine] and without receiving all this user feedback.“The creative director notes that it is not a question of budget, nor of available staff.”Even if you are resistant to the concept of early access, know that it is a way for developers to perfect their product over time, so try to see the benefit in it.” Mahler also defends other big projects, like Hades II and Baldur's Gate 3, which preferred to play this card rather than work in their corner.

And precisely, to support his point, Thomas Mahler cannot help but compare himself to the competition. Specifically Dark Souls. “Imagine if Dark Souls was released in Early Access – From could have reworked the second half of the game to polish weaker areas like Izalith instead of rushing to get an unfinished physical product to market.“. If it is true that From Software's cult game is not devoid of dross, let us remember that it is precisely the passages towards the end of the games which tend to suffer from early access. For example, Baldur's Gate 3 enjoys a first act as smooth as clockwork while the third act was studded with bugs upon release. If the observation is correct, the justification and the commentary are open to debate. However, he is absolutely right to assert that early access allows certain projects to hatch that could have remained dead letters.

Note that the co-founder of Moon Studios has already been singled out in a GamesBeat investigation for excessive confidence arising from “offensive comments“under the cover of a policy”promoting freedom of tone and political incorrectness “. At a time when critics are complaining above all about omnipresent crafting in No Rest for the Wickedthis new projection reminds us that the atmosphere is far from rosy at the former indie nugget of Microsoft, especially since our esteemed Jarod noted in his summary of the investigation that Thomas Mahler always had an unfortunate tendency to tackle the other studios to showcase themselves.