No Rest for the Wicked Is Moon Studios’ Pivot Into Dark Fantasy

To develop the action role-playing game No Rest for the Wicked, Moon Studios looked far beyond the company’s well-regarded 2015 debut, Ori and the Blind Forest, and its 2020 sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps.

At first glance, No Rest for the Wicked has combat reminiscent of the Dark Souls franchise’s slow, consequential action and big boss fights, with a dark fantasy setting drenched in the politics and intrigue “Game of Thrones” made popular.

But Gennadiy Korol, one of the studio’s founders, is quick to identify several other influences: the fighting games and Monster Hunter series that led to the game’s combo system. The animation of Hayao Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke” that steered it away from motion capture. The subtleties of Animal Crossing’s camera that inspired its curved horizon.

And with much fondness for the popular Diablo and Baldur’s Gate franchises, along with the often overlooked Nox, Moon Studios hopes to innovate on the genre by wearing its inspiration on its sleeves.

“We’re trying to take all these inspirations we have from growing up with these games, from playing recent releases,” Korol said. “We take what we really like and we put it together into this unique mix.”

Even its release strategy was guided by previous games. Buoyed by the success stories of Hades and Baldur’s Gate 3, which helped change the perception of early access, Moon Studios released a preliminary version of No Rest for the Wicked on the PC this month. The studio intends to incorporate player feedback as it iterates on the game’s core features, which include crafting mechanics, resource gathering, unique loot and customizable equipment in addition to its quests.