No Rest for the Wicked Early Access Hotfix 3 Improves Performance, Balance, Loot and More

No Rest for the Wicked developer Moon Studios has released the biggest update yet for its action role-playing game as it battles to improve its ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam.

No Rest for the Wicked launched on Steam in Early Access form on April 18 to impressive concurrent player numbers, but players complained about a number of issues, including performance problems, localisation issues, and absent quality of life features. Check out IGN’s No Rest for the Wicked Early Access review for more.

Moon Studios, famous for the Ori franchise, said Hotfix 3 improves performance, balance, loot, harvesting, and graphics, and fixes progression blockers while adding new options in the Settings screen. A good few dozen other bugs across the rest of the game have also been squashed, Moon Studios added. It’s worth highlighting the following change: “Automatic Camera Zoom adjustment for handheld devices and Performance Mode.” That should go down well with players on Steam deck, for example.

In a tweet, Thomas Mahler, Moon Studios CEO and creative director, called on Early Access players to “hang tight” as the developer works towards the 1.0 release. “We understand that people paid good money to play Wicked, so they expect a good experience on their machines from the get-go,” Mahler said.

“We already released a few optimization fixes with more dramatic changes on the way! Joining us on our Early Access journey means that you’ll get all the improvements, content updates and fixes until we release 1.0, so just hang tight, we’ll make sure that you’ll get an excellent product (while being able to give us direct feedback, we’re listening!).”

No Rest for the Wicked Early Access Hotfix 3 patch notes:

Performance Improvements:

• Improved area streaming, making the game feel smoother while traversing across different areas
• Dynamic Resolution Scaling is now less aggressive, maintaining higher image quality
• Improved culling for off-screen physics objects and characters
• Fixed culling for bird animations, improving their performance in levels (there’s a lot of them!)
• Additional Shader Optimizations for performance mode
• Fixed a leak which increased memory and CPU usage the longer the game was played
• Optimized rain and other GPU particles
• Opening Cinematics and Ship Prologue Optimizations
• Memory optimizations for character customization textures
• Additional general CPU performance improvements

Graphics Additions and Fixes:

• Adjusting Brightness / Contrast / Saturation no longer breaks HDR rendering
• Fade to Black now actually fully fades to black in HDR mode

Settings Additions and Fixes:

• Added Camera Zoom Adjustment Option
• Automatic Camera Zoom adjustment for handheld devices and Performance Mode

Menu Changes:

• Added a new menu for exiting the game which includes both Exit To Main Menu and Exit To Desktop (localized text for this menu is coming soon!)
• Adjusted Repair menu size to accommodate for text in other languages

Balance Changes:

• Weapons parrying now consumes Stamina (Shields parrying remains unchanged)
• Nerfed Gain Focus On Focus Use enchantment
• Unarmed can now land hits while enemies are on the ground after performing a Backstab

Loot Changes:

• Adjusted Dig Spot rates such that Clay drops more often
• Reduced the number of hits needed for Dig Spots, Ore Veins, and Trees

Enemy Changes:

• Improved behavior for Nith Screamer and Shackled Brute

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed the crane not turning correctly in Nameless Pass and blocking players from progressing
• Fixed a chest at Mariner’s Keep elevator locking you in when trying to loot it
• Fixed dig spots sometimes not giving any loot
• Fixed remaining enemies and bosses becoming kaijus
• Fixed Falstead Darak dealing damage during his transition while he is still human
• Fixed certain doors in Sacrament not having interaction hints
• Fixed missing VFX for attacks by the Twin Bruisers, False Ones and Boarskin Axe
• Fixed condition where enemies attack when they should not
• Fixed vendor buy/sell prices on Raw and Refined materials being only ¼ of what they should be
• Fixed missing furniture items at Workbench
• Fixed Mira and Meri’s Spinning Wheel not allowing players to refine wool threads into garments
• Fixed keyboard and mouse buttons not working on Bounties contribute panel
• Fixed an issue where side notifications would occasionally spam players
• Fixed parry tutorial trigger conditions
• Fixed wording of enchanting tutorial to more accurately describe common rarity
• Fixed spot in the Prologue where you can jump off the ship
• Fixed sizing of a railing on the ship in the Prologue
• Fixed spots where you can get stuck in a climbing loop in Orban Glades and Nameless Pass
• Fixed spot in the Black Trench where you can see out of world
• Fixed Angler’s Delight Chowder’s recipe name
• Changed Danos’ confirm button color so it does not look grayed out
• Fixed NPCs not knowing how to hold fishing rods in Nameless Pass
• Fixed missing shadows and incorrect volumetric fog after changing resolution
• Fixed reflection popping in sewers dungeon
• Fixed torches and fire popping in cinematics
• Fixed rain appearing in caves in Nameless Pass
• Fixed missing audio for waterfall in Potion Seller Cave
• Fixed missing audio for Nameless Pass Prisoner chopping and mining
• Fixed an issue where there was a super bright mist in the Twins Boss arena after respawning
• Fixed pink effects appearing in faders at times
• Improved collision in some places at Orban Glades
• Improved faders in Nameless Pass
• Fixed Photosensitivity screen having overlapping text in certain languages

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.