No Rest for the Wicked chief defends early access, says more games should do it: 'Imagine [if] Dark Souls 1 had been in early access'

No Rest for the Wicked, the action RPG from Ori and the Blind Forest developer Moon Studios, launched into early access on Steam last week, and it's really quite good. Not everyone is entirely taken with it, though: An awful lot of negative reviews flowed in immediately after release, complaining about a raft of issues including performance, balance, and an overall lack of polish.

Moon Studios quickly responded to those complaints with an update promising improvements are on the way. «This is early access, so there is plenty you will see improve as we continuously look to optimize and improve the game with your feedback,» the studio said.

Even before it came out, some players expressed concerns about No Rest for the Wicked going into early access in the first place—mainly wondering about how «early» the game would be—and post-launch there have been suggestions the game wasn't ready even for an early access release. For the most part, though, players seem to be digging it, as seen in the game's climb from a «mixed» to «mostly positive» rating over the course of a week.

Regardless of all that and whatever anyone else might think about it, Moon Studios CEO and creative director Thomas Mahler has no regrets, calling the early access release «one of the best decisions we could've made.»

«I see some people are still irked about why games like Wicked, Hades 2, Larian's new game, etc. launch into early access even if the studio 'should have the funds to finish the game and release it then',» Mahler wrote on Twitter. «But that's looking at a complex problem through a way too simple lens.

»I think as games become more and more complex and sophisticated, we'll see some form of early access happening more and more often. Speaking from our own experience, there is just no way we could have ever shipped [No Rest for the] 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.