No Rest for the Wicked, the new action-rpg/roguelike from Ori developer Moon Studios is out now in early access and eliciting a mix of responses. Most have been struck by the game’s obvious potential, but some have also complained the game is a bit overly demanding when it comes to PC performance, particularly considering it’s an isometric Diablo-like (albeit a very nice-looking one).
This definitely feels like a situation where upscalers like DLSS and FSR would come in handy, but according to according to Moon Studios boss Gennadiy Korol, they’re holding back after early DLSS experiments as the results just aren’t up to snuff. Currently, they’re “losing quite a lot of sharpness,” which is an issue for No Rest for the Wicked, which is really defined by its super crisp, distinctive art style. That said, it seems Moon Studios is dedicated to doing “special training of DLSS networks” to make it work. They also will be working on FSR 2.2 support as an alternative to DLSS.
“We have implemented our first version of DLSS for No Rest for the Wicked but we are not going to ship it just yet. The image quality we are getting is not quite on par with our native rendering, the HDR highlights and rim-lighting is affected more than we would like. We are also losing quite a lot of sharpness. Our TAA and Sharpening looks pretty great with our own upscaling so until DLSS looks on par or better, we would rather bake it a bit more before shipping it.
DLSS excels with transparencies (rain, particle effects) since it does not smear them like TAA does. But we have a fix in the works for our transparencies to be rendered without TAA so that they will look just as crisp regardless of the specific usage of upscaling engines. We most likely will have to do special training of DLSS networks for this specific game and its visual style. We will also integrate FSR 2.2 as an alternative upscaling option.”
In a further comment on X, Korol says they’ll look into FSR 3.1, indicating they’ll likely be trying to implement the latest versions of both DLSS and FSR. Haven’t been keeping up with No Rest for the Wicked? Wccftech’s Francesco De Meo felt it had “extreme potential” after some early hands-on time…
“Having been released as an early access title, it is undeniable that Moon Studios still has a lot of work to do on No Rest for the Wicked to improve gameplay and performance. The core gameplay, however, is very solid and engaging, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it will be refined in the coming months.”
No Rest for the Wicked is currently available on PC via Steam Early Access. A window for the game’s full release, which will include Xbox Series X/S and PS5 versions, has not been provided as of yet.
