“An Absolutely Beautiful Sense Of Detail”

No Rest for the Wicked is the newest game from Moon Studios, the company behind the Ori games, and anyone familiar with the work of the studio knows that it’s gorgeous. It’s also fluid, challenging, and deeply atmospheric, all highlights that No Rest for the Wicked seems hellbent on upholding. This time, though, these concepts play out in an action RPG space, and the uniqueness of resulting concoction is immediately intriguing.

In time with No Rest for the Wicked‘s digital showcase, “Wicked Inside,” Screen Rant was able to go hands-on with the early stages of the game and get a feel for what makes it tick. No Rest for the Wicked has a lot of familiar elements, whether pulling from Diablo or Dark Souls, but it assembles them in a way that doesn’t quite feel like anything else. Unfortunately, the preview build also ran into some technical issues that made it difficult to get the full grasp of what it has to offer.

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Exciting Combat And Varied Possibilities

The setup for No Rest for the Wicked is a cocktail of classic ideas — the death of a king, an unnatural plague, and a crusade launched by an unconvincing successor — presented with efficient style. The gameplay doesn’t take much longer to get moving than the narrative does, and there’s a refreshing amount to latch onto after the protagonist washes up on a beach to start the preview sequence. Scavenging, fighting, and harvesting natural resources all quickly present themselves as options, but the scope of possibilities feels completely legible and far from overwhelming.

Combat is central to No Rest for the Wicked, relying on fluid animations and sophisticated hitboxes to make each maneuver count. Sneaking up behind enemies offers a powerful back attack, but attacks with daggers are aggressive and punchy in a way that also makes risky play all too enticing. The approach to encumbrance, rolls, and stamina should all be familiar to veterans of Souls-like games, even if the vaguely isometric angle isn’t the typical perspective to wrangle them in.

There’s one area where the confluence of genres feels a bit odd, which lies in using a Cerim Whisper, game’s version of a bonfire. Healing up and establishing a respawn point works like it does in a Souls-like, but in the more traditional ARPG realm, enemies don’t respawn. In some segments, it seems especially easy to abuse, whether picking off enemies in a horde one by one or luring a boss nearby while restocking health. It’s possible to ignore these strategies, and that’s potentially the better way to play, but it’s hard not to stumble into these advantages by accident.

The Limits Of The No Rest For The Wicked Preview

If this mechanic seems weirdly forgiving, progressing into the forested area offers some reassurance that No Rest for the Wicked still has claws. A bit of exploration reveals one enemy with some vicious attacks in both reach and damage, and staying on the main path will ultimately run into the first proper boss, Warrick. A small sampling of Warrick’s moves invokes the sense of good boss design, with fast, varied attack possibilities that are easy to pick up on but challenging to circumvent.

Beating Warrick didn’t prove possible within the scope of the preview, but it wasn’t because of the fight itself. Even when turning down the resolution, the framerate in the preview build of No Rest for the Wicked took an unmanageable nosedive in this area. It’s possible that some troubleshooting could have fixed things, but after closing the game with the protagonist sitting on a ledge and re-opening it to see if the situation had improved, it got stuck in a loop where loading the save file would just plummet the character to their doom and hang on a black screen.

Final Impressions Of No Rest For The Wicked

These issues should ideally be resolved by the time any build of No Rest for the Wicked hits early access, and it’s easy to be hopeful about how engaging a version of the game that runs like a charm could be. The look and feel of the game are genuinely something special. An absolutely beautiful sense of detail never loses the necessary amount of clarity in the midst of extensive environmental and lighting effects, and fluidity and impact are wonderfully balanced in the movement of both the playable character and enemies.

As far as the way that No Rest for the Wicked‘s gameplay ideals come together, it might take a slightly deeper plunge to see if the inclusion of crafting elements or the exclusion of enemy respawns cohere in a meaningful way. If everything falls into place on a level that’s comparable to the combat and atmosphere, No Rest for the Wicked is primed for greatness. Greatness that’s also a little bit dependent on Warrick not dashing any more dreams through powers beyond his own imagination, that is.

No Rest for the Wicked

Developer(s)

Moon Studios

Publisher(s)

Private Division

ESRB

Rating Pending