Dark Souls would’ve been a better game in early access, says dev behind Dark Souls-like early access game No Rest For The Wicked
Dark Souls, one of the most widely acclaimed video games of the last two decades - perhaps all time - and progenitor of one of modern video gaming’s most influential and oft-copied-rarely-bettered genres, the Soulslike, would’ve been a better game had it launched into early access. That’s the suggestion from the head of Ori and the Blind Forest developers Moon Studios in the wake of launching their own early access Soulslike, No Rest For The Wicked.
Thomas Mahler took to Xitter to extol the benefits of launching No Rest For The Wicked into early access after the Soulslike ARPG arrived last week with a number of performance issues, which are now being smoothed out via a series of patches.
“We're not even a week into Early Access and it's already pretty clear that going with EA is one of the best decisions we could've made,” Mahler wrote in a lengthy post. “There is just no way we could have ever shipped Wicked 1.0 without being able to see all the data we're seeing now and getting all the feedback from users. And I mean actual users, not a Focus Testing Group.”
That’s all well and good - after all, early access has become a very well established part of the modern video game launch cycle, with Mahler pointing out the use of the in-development offering by the likes of Hades 2 creators Supergiant Games and Baldur's Gate 3 makers Larian as a way of “allow[ing] developers to truly perfect a product over time”, particularly “as games become more and more complex and sophisticated”.
“Shipping games is always incredibly difficult and stressful and most of the time it means making quite drastic compromises, especially if your product is trying to accomplish something new,” the developer wrote. “And if you don't know that it's okay to bring in certain features and scope after the fact, you'll just end up cutting before you hit the market.”
We're not even a week into Early Access and it's already pretty clear that going with EA is one of the best decisions we could've made
Read more on rockpapershotgun.com
