No Rest for the Wicked co-op update comes in January with persistent realms, but you can play the beta now

Moon Studios has revealed what’s in store for their ambitious action RPG No Rest for the Wicked and the addition of co-op multiplayer. The studio is forging a rather unique path compared to other top-down action RPGs and Soulslikes, with persistent realms you can share with other players.

The No Rest for the Wicked co-op update will arrive on 22nd January in full, but is currently in an open beta on Steam. That beta has now been extended to conclude on 5th January, so you can play all through the holiday.

So what’s the benefits and reason to Moon Studios’ approach? Well, as outlined in the latest dev diary, there’s a distinct lack of permanence to a multiplayer session in many Soulslikes, and shared online spaces in games like Diablo 4 and Destiny have little meaning to them, just other people running around. But there’s something special about having clanmates to hang out with in an MMO, and so No Rest for the Wicked is blending all of this together.

No Rest for the Wicked will let you convert any single player realm into a multiplayer one, making it a fully online and persistent instance of the game world. Within this you can have up to four players, and you can share this space fully with characters tied to the realm, or bring characters in from other realms. Being persistent, you don’t need a host player to be online, and so anyone can hop in, harvest materials, level up their character, buy property, and go to complete main quests.

That obviously means that you do need to have a trusting relationship with the other players in your realm. The video showcases some of the shenanigans you can get up to, as studio director Thomas Mahler buys up a ton of property through farming progress and then trying to flip the property to the others, and then those others getting a little bit of revenge.

For the more moment-to-moment action, Moon Studio also outline how you can really work together in play, having front line character, ranged builds and healers that can be great for tackling an imposing boss together. At the same time, enemy AI has been adapted to understand more about player positioning, able to react to flanking moves, or exhibiting some new attacks that you won’t see in single player.

For the game as a whole, vendors will now have fresh gear to sell cycling in and out of their shops. Enchantments have been overhauled and higher level items get better rolls – but you now have limited rerolls – while weapons can now deal crit damage, and have random Facets to provide different stats. Socketing gems will now give fixed improvements, but there’s now higher tier gems. Exhalting (a bit like prestiging an item) needs you to have completely maxed out your item first, boosting a random item in a particular category multiple times.

All enemies are now back-stabbable in combat (if you’re good enough), and bows have been enhanced with a new off-hand Quiver to introduce different arrow types (like blasting, explosive arrows).

Oh, and for the high difficulty sickos out there, the highest difficulty now has more enemies than before.

The game has come through a difficult year, with Moon Studios having to split off from publisher Private Division and go it solo, and with Mahler having a weird moment on social media. Since entering Early Access in early 2024, progress has also been steady as opposed to blistering, but with a big update earlier this year, and now the imminent addition of multiplayer (which will certainly have been a mountain to overcome), the future for this game is rather encouraging.

No Rest for the Wicked is out now in Steam Early Access, with PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions planned for when it’s good and ready.

Source: YouTube, Steam