NO REST FOR THE WICKED

One of the smartest Soulslikes I've played in a long time

- Tyler Colp

Let's get this out of the way now: No Rest for the Wicked is absolutely not an action RPG in the style of Diablo. There is loot to find, yes, but it doesn't transform you into an untouchable god. No Rest for the Wicked is a lot closer to a Soulslike with its weighty, punishing combat and labyrinthine world. But with its isometric camera and gear rarity, it's also unlike most other games in the genre, and that's exactly makes it so promising.

No Rest for the Wicked, which comes from Ori and the Blind Forest developer Moon Studios (a developer I sincerely hope has cleaned up its act, lest it sour something great here) and just released into Early Access, does have many of the things you expect from a Soulslike: a bleak, fantasy atmosphere, weighty combat and nasty bosses. The ways you interact with the world, however, are vastly different than they are in Dark Souls or even Elden Ring. There are survival elements in it that remind me of Breath of the Wild, like having to gather herbs and meat to cook food. You can even pull out a fishing rod or an axe to chop down trees.

The island of Sacra doesn’t seem to be dying like the setting of most Soulslikes. It’s surprisingly lush: pockets of grass dance in the wind and seawater crashes against its rocky shores. There are crumbling towers and creaky wooden bridges, too, but Sacra is far from ruined.

The plants you pick and the trees you chop down grow back over time and end up being essential to your survival in a Soulslike where dying isn’t a massive setback. It’s this quality that might be why a nearby religious order is intent on using the recent outbreak of a curse that turns people into monsters as an excuse to ‘cleanse’ it.

BRUTAL ENCOUNTERS