No Rest for the Wicked is already making some of its most most annoying mechanics better

No Rest for the Wicked developer Moon Studios is seemingly living up to the game’s name. Shortly after the Early Access launch of the action RPG, the team got to work on tackling some of the more common complaints.

While the majority of the big issues remain unresolved, Moon already released not one, but two hotfixes just over the weekend.

The first of the two hotfixes dropped on Saturday, and it mainly tackled balance around a few of the game’s mechanics. For one, it reduced the durability damage taken across the board, as well as repair costs. Repair Powder - an item that saves you the trip to the blacksmith, should now also be more plentiful.

Combat in No Rest for the Wicked is stamina-based, but the game’s action was perhaps a little over-tuned, with most attacks costing more than stamina than they feel like they should. Moon’s response was to cut down those costs. The developer also made the dreaded fall damage a little less punishing by adjusting its curve.

Those of you just starting the prologue will be happy to know that there are now more weapons to be found, and you won’t have to keep discarding Fallen Embers because they drop so much, too.

The Sunday hotfix continued the trend, bringing even more bug fixes to the game, but it was also the first to improve game performance for players by optimising the Balanced and Performance quality presets, and adjusting the cost of several visual effects.

One of the more exciting changes in hotfix 2 is the boost to the durability of tools, which are used for gathering crafting materials. Tier 1 now has 100, followed by 125 for tier 2, and 150 for tier 3. While on the subject of crafting and survival, food costs have been adjusted to be more in line with each item’s health boost. Dig spots should now grant more rewards, too, particularly clay.

The big one, though, has to be the addition of tool crafting to the crafting tables, which is something everyone with broken pickaxes and shovels will be very happy for.

While it’s good to see Moon quickly respond to feedback - especially around item drop rates and fall damage - there’s much work to be done. Performance hiccups remain an issue, particularly when traversing between areas.

The game’s frontend remains quite lacking, with no way to tweak individual graphics settings, and no ability to rebind keys. The developer did confirm, however, that those will arrive in an update soon. Until then, player opinions on No Rest for the Wicked remain divided.

In our impressions of the first few hours with the game, we found its combat, visual style and world to have a strong character, but lamented the unnecessary addition of survival elements, alongside a few other gameplay limitations. Considering the hotfixes have somewhat addressed a couple of those topics, we’re hopeful the Early Access journey will be one to watch as the game evolves.