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

ign.com:

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.

Wicked’s gameplay starts like most action-RPGs do: by smashing every barrel and killing every inconsequential crab in an effort to improve from the nothing you start with to something, anything. And while those initial vermin pose no threat, you’ll soon be introduced to the enemies called The Risen that very