Recently published the for the Ori-Games well-known developer Moon Studios his latest work No rest for the wicked in an early access version. In his GamersGlobal preview, Benjamin Braun criticized, among other things, the performance, and almost 40 percent of the Steam reviews were negative.
X (formerly Twitter) now reported Thomas MahlerCreative Director of Soulslikes and CEO of Moon Studios, and strongly promoted the Early Access model for game releases.
The starting point was not specific criticism of No Rest for the Wicked. Rather, Mahler is aimed at players who have a problem with studios going the early access route because they have enough resources to finish their game without selling an unfinished version.
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From our own experience: We could never in our lives release Wicked 1.0 without seeing all the data we have now and without the user feedback we get. And by that I mean real users, not focus test groups. This wouldn't be possible even with a team two to three times as large; the product is far too complex to expect that.
The developer makes a comparison with Dark Souls an: At that time, FromSoftware had to release a product that was also sold as a boxed version under time pressure, so that the first Dark Souls seemed partly unfinished. If there had been something like early access back then, the well-known studio could have taken a closer look at the second half and, for example, polished up the city of Lost Izalith, which was sunk in lava.
DLC or upgrades are often not a valid alternative, he continues:
Delivering a game is always extremely difficult and stressful and in most cases it leads to drastic compromises, especially if your product wants to try something new. And if you don't know if it's okay to add features after the fact, you'll throw them out before it hits the market. So even if you don't like the idea of early access, it's a way that allows developers to really perfect a product over time. So please try to understand that there is value in that.
He also predicts that more and more people will rely on the early access model in the future because games are becoming more and more complex. Addressing Sony and Nintendo, he says that one should not cling to standards from earlier times that are too restrictive today. Unlike Xbox, there are no early access games on PlayStation and Switch consoles.
For No Rest for the Wicked, Mahler's conclusion after about a week is that Early Access is one of the best decisions the team could have made. Regarding the Steam reviews, the Moon Studios CEO wrote just two days after the launch (accompanied by tearful smileys): “The next few weeks and months will be about turning a 58 into a 90 – CHALLENGE ACCEPTED !” Currently, 73 percent of user reviews for No Rest for the Wicked are positive.
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