Dark Souls is often regarded as one of FromSoftware's best games, but even diehard fans have to admit that the back half is lacking.
Between the lava pools filled with copy-and-pasted dragon butts in Lost Izalith and the pitch-black caverns in The Tomb of the Giants, it's clear that the endgame was rushed.
However, No Rest for the Wicked dev and Moon Studios CEO Thomas Mahler has an interesting idea on how that could have been avoided. "Historically speaking, I think some games would've benefited from early access even before EA was a thing.
Imagine [how] Dark Souls 1 would've been in early access - instead of From rushing to ship a boxed product in a somewhat unfinished state, they probably would've been able to look at the second half of that game and still fully form and polish the less polished areas like Lost Izalith," he wrote in a statement on Twitter defending his game launching in early access (as reported by Eurogamer).
Early access has always been somewhat controversial. Even though games like Baldur's Gate 3 and Hades have thrived by using it as a means to build a budding community while fleshing out the rest of the game behind the scenes, many argue that they would much prefer games to launch in full. "I see some people are still irked about why games like Wicked, Hades 2, Larian's new game, etc.