General Gaming No Rest For the Wicked | New ARPG Game From Moon Studios (Creator of Ori) - update (04/17): Steam Early Access PC system requirements released

[Keyser_Soze]

 

No Rest for the Wicked: Where Moon Studios Is Heading Next After Ori - Xbox Wire

NEWS.XBOX.COM

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Moon Studios' Thomas Mahler reflects on the Ori series, its foundation on Xbox, and introduces the studio’s next game.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Article from PC Gamer:

 

Ori and the Blind Forest developer wants to 'revolutionize the ARPG genre' with its next game's 'direct and tactile' combat | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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No Rest for the Wicked will have an "animation-driven, direct, tactile" combat system and a "painterly" world.

 

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The developer behind Ori and the Blind Forest thinks action RPGs have room for improvement, and aims to "reinvent the genre" with its new game No Rest for the Wicked.

 

Launching on Steam Early Access early next year, No Rest for the Wicked will carry over Moon Studio's painterly art style into an isometric "mature" world set on an island just after the death of its king and freshly corrupted by a transformative plague. You'll fight beasts and invading armies with the gear you gather using a combat system "where skill and timing is required over simple 'button-mashing.'"

 

"Fights in the game are animation-driven, direct, and tactile, allowing skilled players to combine visceral strikes and deadly moves," Moon Studios says. Weapons will have unique movesets and there will be enemie and bosses that require careful play. As someone who has had to learn the intricacies of Diablo 4's combat to succeed in its endgame dungeons, it seems like No Rest for the Wicked will demand that of you earlier in your journey.

 

 

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No Rest for the Wicked's island, known as Isola Sacra, will have "verticality that is unmatched in other ARPGs," as well as underground crypts, forests, and mountains. Each area will have characters and secrets to find as you progress through its campaign. In co-op, you'll have every "quest, boss, and square foot of Isola Sacra" open to you, and the press release makes it seem like you can split up within the same shared world at any time.

 

Player housing will play a role too. In the town of Sacrament, you can buy property to build your home on. You can also fish and farm for meals to replenish your health and increase your stats before you go dungeon diving.

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Keyser_Soze]

 

[XxEvil AshxX]

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Article that accompanies the video that @Keyser_Soze posted.

 

No Rest for the Wicked's Crunchy Combat is More Dark Souls Than Diablo - IGN First - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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Moon Studios reveals how tactical games like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter have influenced No Rest for the Wicked, its refreshing new take on ARPGs.

 

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No Rest For The Wicked sees Ori developer Moon Studios building an action RPG for the very first time. But despite its familiar isometric perspective, the project is very different from popular ARPGs like Diablo and Path of Exile. Combat in No Rest for the Wicked is deliberate, tactical, and every swing of the sword counts. In short: if you like the nail biting experience of Dark Souls boss battles, then it looks like Moon Studios may be making your next favourite game.

 

“The major goal for our combat was to make it feel super visceral,” reveals Thomas Mahler, Moon Studio’s co-founder and creative director on No Rest for the Wicked. “To make sure that we create a combat system where animations also really matter. That when you press a button, you get really satisfying swings, and that it doesn't turn into spam.”

 

That last point is important. The term ARPG, at least in the isometric space, brings to mind high action-per-minute gameplay where you’re hammering left-click and deploying abilities the moment the cooldown counter hits zero. No Rest for the Wicked is nothing like that.

 

“It's about making it feel a bit more personal, a bit closer, a bit more focused,” explains Gennadiy Korol, co-founder of Moon Studios and its director of technology. “It's not this overflow of sensory information where you just cannot really tell what's going on onscreen. You actually feel every single action of your character.

 

“It's up close, it's focused,” he adds. “It's not 20 enemies on screen all against you, it's encounter after encounter. Every single move matters.”

 

 

[Keyser_Soze]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

More previews from Friday:

 

The next adventure from the developer of Ori and the Blind Forest is a gripping soulslike action-RPG with a survival game twist | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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After 90 minutes with No Rest for the Wicked, I'm already in love with its enthralling visuals and deeply satisfying combat.

 

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From its opening moments, No Rest for the Wicked is dripping with atmosphere. Literally, a lot of the time—during my 90 minutes with the game, its grim setting is perpetually damp, a clouded island where bandits and worse lurk among sodden ruins. 

 

Its inhabitants—including my created character, a mystic warrior known as a "Cerim"—have a wonderfully gangly, grotesque look, like classical portraits whose paint is running in all that rain. And that's just the normal humans—when I run into the enormous mutant that serves as this build's boss fight, I get to see what ugly really looks like. But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

 

No Rest for the Wicked is a soulslike action-RPG—expect the deadly, methodical combat and careful exploration of Dark Souls, with the top-down perspective and loot customisation of something more like Diablo 4. But I didn't want to lead with that, because to just waffle about genres and inspirations would be the most boring way to talk about a game that immediately yanked me into its world and refused to let go. 

 

 

 

Soulslikers are going to love Ori studio's new ARPG No Rest For The Wicked

WWW.ROCKPAPERSHOTGUN.COM

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RPS have been hands on with No Rest For The Wicked, the new online action RPG from the makers of Ori And The Blind Fore…

 

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When Ori And The Blind Forest developers Moon Studios announced that their next game would be a top-down, online action RPG, my initial reaction was, 'Heck yes, sign me the hell up for this Souls-y, Diablo-y hack and slash.' Having now played the opening 90 minutes of the game ahead of tonight's Wicked Inside showcase, that initial excitement has settled into more of a 'Hoo boy, this thing is hard as nails. Folks who like Elden Ring and Dark Souls are going to go absolutely bananas for it.' It's definitely verging on the edge of being just a teensy bit too punishing for my personal taste, but even though my arse got thoroughly whomped time and time again during this initial prologue section, there's still something about No Rest For The Wicked that's left me quietly captivated.

 

For starters, its painterly visuals are just gorgeous. There's a real springy-ness to the character models in both the cutscenes and in-game action, with every frame somehow looking like both a hand-drawn painting when paused, but a writhing and full-bodied 3D mass in motion. It's a wonderful effect, and a clear step up in ambition from both of Moon's Ori games, with enemies lunging their stretchy, rubbery bodies at you with an almost cartoonish sense of abandon - well, if it weren't for the honking great hammers and axes attempting to cleave your head off your shoulders, that is.

 

 

 

No Rest for the Wicked Preview - Fantastically Familiar In A Faraway Land - Game Informer

WWW.GAMEINFORMER.COM

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We went hands-on with No Rest for the Wicked, the upcoming action-RPG from the makers of the Ori series.

 

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After creating my character, I'm introduced to this medieval world with a cutscene that feels ripped out of a great Game of Thrones episode. The king has died, and his close confidant is clearly worried about the future of the kingdom now that the dead king's son has taken his place; that worry seems justified given the son-now-king immediately calls for a churchly inquisition to a faraway land that's rumored sick with a plague. Hard cut to Wesley, my created character with his caricatured limbs that look like a gothic painting that's begun to melt, who has arrived in said faraway land after a shipwreck. With nothing to work with, I start smashing crates and crabs in search of gear, like a sharp weapon and some armor. 

 

Immediately, I'm struck by the painterly art style. It's clear the team behind Ori and the Blind Forest/Will of the Wisps is the developer, even if the visual technique is different. If the Ori series uses its visuals to paint a whimsical fantasy forest, No Rest For The Wicked uses its visuals to paint a miserable fantasy to exist in. Knowing this game is inspired by the isometric ARPG likes of Blizzard's Diablo series and From Software's Dark Souls games, I see the vision. 

 

That vision is even more apparent when I find a pair of daggers and some armor, giving me the confidence to move through this land like a fighter on the up. While the field of view might have you thinking it feels like Diablo, it's much more in line with the challenge and pace of Dark Souls (Editor's Note: look, I know it’s a tired comparison, but the game's leads literally told us From's games inspired this one).

 

I time parries to open enemies up to big hits, slash until my stamina runs out, dodge-roll out of attacks I’m not prepared to parry, and spend upwards of 60 seconds on standard mob opponents. It feels fantastic, and that feeling holds up when I pick up a large sword and shield, taking my build from a "normal" one with standard speed to a "heavy" one with slower speed and, of course, the fat roll. I find parrying with the shield much easier. Plus, I can perform standard blocks, which drain stamina but prevent huge hits of damage, something using the dual daggers doesn't allow me to do – it's parry or nothing. 

 

 

 

No Rest for the Wicked: The First Hands-On Preview - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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The first hour and a half of No Rest for the Wicked gave me a good sense of what to expect, and it left me wanting more. It's as much Dark Souls as Diablo, and I suspect it’s going to win over a lot of you when it launches into Early Access in the coming weeks.

 

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I’ve played both Ori games. I survived the Water Tower in Blind Forest. So I knew that, even though developer Moon Studios was changing genres for its next game, No Rest for the Wicked, I shouldn’t expect to breeze through it. And sure enough, after playing the first 90 minutes of an early build, culminating in a punishing boss fight, I had to earn every new piece of gear, every bit of loot, and every inch of progress. No Rest for the Wicked is beautiful, it is challenging, and it is rewarding. You are not a walking death machine here, like in Diablo. Instead, your enemies are the walking death machines, and you’ll need to learn how to survive them. It’s more like Dark Souls in an isometric-view action-RPG form.

 

As we’d already been told by Moon Studios in our recent IGN First exclusive coverage, No Rest for the Wicked isn’t a high-speed slaughterfest like Diablo 4. Instead, it’s much closer to Dark Souls. You’ll need to time your attacks, parries, dodge rolls, and enemy engagements just right in order to survive each fight. But I’m getting ahead of myself. After enjoying the opening cutscene and rolling your character, you’ll wash ashore and immediately notice Wicked’s beautiful painterly art style. It has a family resemblance to Ori, visually speaking, but it’s much bleaker. Where Ori was vibrant, Wicked is sullen. This isn’t a complaint, though. Its beachside starting location and constant rain and windswept foliage make it feel like a pirate story that’s gone terribly wrong. This is a good thing, visually, as it gives Wicked’s world character and makes it constantly feel alive. It’s a lived-in place, though what lives there doesn’t seem too happy about it.

 

 

 

 

With No Rest for the Wicked, Moon Studios Is Moving From Its Mario to Its Zelda - IGN First - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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The creators of No Rest for the Wicked reveal how they've navigated the journey from making the Ori series of Metroidvanias to tackling a Souls-influenced action RPG.

 

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The Ori games have always felt like something of a big deal. That’s in part thanks to the backing of Microsoft Studios, which published both The Blind Forest and The Will of the Wisps initially as Xbox console exclusives. The shine of that exclusivity drew people to Ori’s quality, and by the time the games were released on other platforms it was common knowledge just how talented developer Moon Studios was. It’s a reputation that somewhat betrays the reality that the first Ori game was built by just a couple of handfuls of staff. The studio is small. Or it was small, at least to begin with.

 

Today, Moon Studios is pretty sizable for an indie developer, and currently at work on its most ambitious project yet: No Rest for the Wicked, an action RPG with striking visuals, precise combat, and online multiplayer. It’s a huge leap for the company, and so as part of this month’s IGN First we caught up with Moon Studio’s co-founders to discuss moving forward from Ori’s success and into the challenging waters of sprawling worlds, fantastical lore, and early access development.

 

“I always saw Ori as our Mario,” says Moon Studio’s co-founder, CEO, and creative director, Thomas Mahler. “Because, even though it was a Metroidvania, the platforming focus was so big in that game. [...] Then I was really excited about the idea of ‘What happens if Moon Studios, with our art style and all of that, would take on something like Zelda?”

 

 

 

 

How No Rest for the Wicked's Gorgeous Art Direction Was Found - IGN First - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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Moon Studios reveals the ambitions and inspirations behind No Rest for the Wicked's gorgeous, painting-like art direction.

 

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When No Rest for the Wicked was first revealed at The Game Awards last year, its painterly art style was unsurprisingly a big topic of discussion. Simply put, it was the most striking trailer of the show. While it looked akin to Dungeons & Dragons sourcebook artwork in motion, the gorgeous art also made it somewhat obvious as to who was behind the images.

 

“This is almost like our DNA,” says Gennadiy Korol, co-founder of Moon Studios and its director of technology. “That's the trademark of Moon, we want our games to look timeless. We want them to look like a painting that is animated.”

 

That much was obvious to anyone who played Moon’s Ori games, but No Rest for the Wicked seems to take that idea and push it into the next dimension. By transitioning to 3D, Moon has left the ‘illustrated’ vibe of Ori behind for something that looks like a painted reality. It’s hard not to draw parallels to projects like Netflix’s Arcane or the Spider-Verse films, which make their 3D animation appear like 2D, hand-drawn artwork. Those projects will likely prove timeless, and Moon Studios hopes the same for No Rest for the Wicked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The full Wicked Inside: Showcase presentation which reveals that Steam Early Access will begin on April 18:

 

 

New screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[best3444]

Thus is turning out awesome. I'm definitely interested. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Yeah - I'm absolutely VERY interested in this one!

 

I don't know if I'm "Steam Early Access interested", but I'll be keeping my eye on this one!

[Bacon]

Early Access

[XxEvil AshxX]

So does this mean this game will "release" a year after it comes out?

 

Fuckin' Last Epoch took like, two years.

[legend]

I might play this one in EA. The main reason I didn't like Elden Ring is its absolutely abysmal camera controls (and controls in general) and "hide the enemy" game design. Shouldn't have an issue with that here!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[best3444]

How do you get early access? It looks so freakin good!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

2 minutes ago, best3444 said:

How do you get early access? It looks so freakin good!

 

Just buy it on Steam when it goes live on the 18th.

 

No Rest for the Wicked on Steam

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

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From Moon Studios, the award-winning developers of Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps comes No Rest for the Wicked, a visceral, precision Action RPG set to reinvent the genre.

 

[best3444]

Just now, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

Just buy it on Steam when it goes live on the 18th.

 

No Rest for the Wicked on Steam

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

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From Moon Studios, the award-winning developers of Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps comes No Rest for the Wicked, a visceral, precision Action RPG set to reinvent the genre.

 

 

I'm absolutely buying this then. Thanks. 

[legend]

Yeah, I'll be giving this a whirl in early access.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

[stepee]

Gonna look lovely on the old deck display..might have to break my normal early access rule on this one

[best3444]

Just now, stepee said:

Gonna look lovely on the old deck display..might have to break my normal early access rule on this one

 

I'm playing tomorrow too. It looks so beautiful 😍 

[best3444]

Anyone pick this up today? I'm going to in a few hours. Impressions?

[best3444]

@Commissar SFLUFAN I'm at the steam page and this says it's not available yet?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

6 minutes ago, best3444 said:

@Commissar SFLUFAN I'm at the steam page and this says it's not available yet?

 

That's because it's not available yet.

 

It should go live for purchase in a few minutes or so.

[best3444]

5 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

That's because it's not available yet.

 

It should go live for purchase in a few minutes or so.

 

Oh...ok. Nice and thank you. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

No Rest for the Wicked: the spectacular evolution of Moon Studios' graphics tech

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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Digital Foundry talks about visual features and performance in No Rest for the Wicked on Early Access.

 

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At its core, Wicked remains a game rooted in the Unity Engine but with a vast range of customisations transforming it into its own thing, hence the nickname - Moonity. This, however, is used only for the game's presentation layer - the graphics you see on-screen. Moon has also built a new simulation engine - built on top of Exit Games' Quantum Engine - to handle game logic, including a fully deterministic 3D physics system for networking, which No Rest for the Wicked will feature at a later date.

What makes this setup work well is the division between rendering and simulation - basically, input responsiveness is separate from frame-rate so, if you're playing on a lower end platform, like a Steam Deck, at 30fps, the game will still feel as responsive as a game running at a higher frame-rate. The visuals, however, are striking. First and foremost, Wicked supports HDR on day one - this is important as we have largely considered Ori and the Will of the Wisps to stand out as one of the best examples of HDR in any game released to date. The HDR implementation is superb and just as intense and engaging as Ori. It makes a gigantic difference if you use an HDR display.

 

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Another key feature in building a strong atmosphere lies in the animation of world objects - specifically, things such as trees and cloth. The weather is a key part of this: the first area of the game takes place during a thunderstorm with a huge volume of GPU-accelerated rain particles blowing around. It's entertaining to see what happens if you increase the volume of particles beyond realistic limits - it looks ridiculous, yet it remains performant. The detail is remarkable: as the characters battle in the rain, bursts of water can be observed emanating from their clothing as they animate. It really gives the impression that their clothing has become drenched and the intensity of their movement is forcefully flinging the collected water droplets.

 

This ties directly into the unified wind system which influences cloth and trees around you. It's fully adjustable and dynamic, changing alongside the time of day and weather patterns. It looks especially cool around cloth objects, including outfits worn by characters. Speaking of physical interactions, Moon has also included physics simulation for small objects - such as rocks, pebbles and branches that react to your character as you move through the world. These small details are also influenced by events such as explosions. Then there's the fluid simulation - this is applied to things such as water, smoke, fog and the like. You can see it here in this cutscene as the character breaks through the smoke. Beautiful.

 

The point is that the sheer amount of motion on display brings the world to life in a way that I found very impressive. It feels just as lively as the 2D Ori games yet manages to do all of this in full 3D at a larger scale while being significantly more interactive. What's interesting is that, with Wicked being in early access, the team is still working on additional effects that aren't currently in the game. For instance, Moon is experimenting with actual dynamic streams of water. There's also a dynamic mud system in development where moving through thick mud actually displaces the terrain as you trudge through it. Hopefully these find their way into the game as development progresses.

 

 

[best3444]

It's available now on steam 😎 

[best3444]

@stepee Get your copy so we can discuss this game like two prepubescent girls. 

[legend]

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

No Rest for the Wicked: the spectacular evolution of Moon Studios' graphics tech

WWW.EUROGAMER.NET

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Digital Foundry talks about visual features and performance in No Rest for the Wicked on Early Access.

 

 

 

 

 

This sounds like it's impressively well engineered.

[best3444]

About to play now 

[best3444]

And it froze on me lol. 

[Mr.Vic20]

5 minutes ago, best3444 said:

And it froze on me lol. 

Let the joys of Early Access begin! 

[best3444]

Buggy mess. I had the game freeze on me 3 times one being when I adjusted graphical settings. The framerate is really rough too but there are options for that. 

 

It was ok in what I played but I wasn't particularly impressed.