No Rest for the Wicked's combat gets more brutal, the Crucible gets a revamp and stray animals arrive in latest update

Today is a big day for No Rest for the Wicked, the action RPG from Moon Studios. The stunning fantasy game has been in Steam Early Access for a little over three months, and while updates were initially fast and furious, things have slowed down a fair bit.

That was intentional, as the developer shifted into a development stage where the focus has moved to working on bigger features, rather than addressing smaller (but important) issues as they arise following the launch.

This latest update is the first to arrive after this change in focus.

The Crucible update introduces some new content to the game while making major adjustments to mechanics. As the name suggests, there’s a big focus on No Rest for the Wicked’s endgame activity, the Crucible, in this one.

The flow of the mode has entirely changed, and it now leans even harder into its roguelite inspirations. The update triples the number of randomised chambers you can come across, changes the look of the place, adds the new Echoes system, and introduces a new vendor.

Echoes is a system that lets you customise your runs. It’s a collection of buffs, debuffs and modifiers you can pick from, effectively letting you spec into certain types of builds within the Crucible itself. This is meant to increase the variety of runs in the mode. Echoes can be activated using Traces, a new currency dropped by enemies within.

The Seneschal is the new Crucible vendor, and it’s where you can spend your Gloamseed (also dropped in the Crucible). The vendor sells Fallen Embers, refined resources and it can also upgrade your weapons. More interestingly, the Seneschal will even be able to unlock features within the Crucible down the line.

This latest update also introduces a new enemy faction: The Gloam. You’ll run into them in the Crucible for now, but future updates will expand their reach to the rest of the overworld. You’ll know you’re fighting one of them because of their bioluminescent glow, which is a result of their Pestilence infection.

If you played No Rest for the Wicked and never attempted the Crucible, you’ll be happy to know that you can now access it much earlier. It can now be entered after accepting the Spoken & Unspoken from Elsa, which can be done after completing the first campaign quest.

Outside of the Crucible, this update also comes with major tweaks to combat. Fighting is now more dynamic thanks to new visual effects that better sell the oomph of each blow. This even extends to mechanics, as you can now freeze and shatter enemies, tear through them, and rip them to shreds (depending on the weapon used).

And that’s not all, the update even extended a bunch of the game’s regions with new areas, and added stray animals you can pet! And, thanks to all the performance updates the game has received, No Rest for the Wicked is now Steam Deck Verified.

Moon Studios revealed that it’s going to share a more detailed Early Access roadmap soon, which is something that’s been a longtime coming. The first major update is supposed to add co-op, though we’ve yet to get any details on timing.