You need to stop finding excuses for them, lack of communication is lack of communication no matter what happened to the studio or publisher. It literally takes 10 minutes to write a post and click on it. Mahler has time to post on X about how other games made him feel when he was 5 years old and all other nonsense like how is the endgame on POE 2 , how about you focus on your game and your paying customers instead of your oversized ego? Not everyone uses DIscord and most people have no ideea that this forum even exists or this website, call it ignorance or whatewa, but people bought the game on STEAM, thats where they take all the info in regards to the game. And in regards to what the team discusses every day on Discord, that is just talk. And talk is cheap and proves absolutely nothing. People are fed up with all this back and forth, trailers to announcements and gaslighting. Paying customers want to see what the hell you as a developer have been doing for almost a year with the money thats been given to you in good trust for the development of the game. Do you as a developer have anything to show for it ? or not. Thats what it comes down to.
And these are not speculations. These are facts, it is a fact that this game lost 90% of its playerbase in less than a year, it is a fact that this game made no progress in its roadmap since it was announced, it is a fact that there is a total lack of communication from the developers and a disregard to the customers, it is a fact that other games also in EA update constantly almost every week, it is a fact that multiplayer is not coming in the ânext big updateâ as was promised in the roadmap, it is a fact that current reviews on steam are 90% poor due to the facts stated above, it is a fact that our characters will be wiped when the ânew updateâ kicks in, if it ever kicks in this year, it is a fact that nobody, not even the developers have a straight line and ideea on where this game is going and how to develop it (you can see that from all the idiotic ideeas that they bounce in the discord channel) and so on and so on. These are facts.
and how exactly does repeating those facts we all already know help, change those facts, improve steam rating or expedite development and release of updates?
No it doesnt. But we dont have to find excuses for the situation. We need to accept it as it is . We have been bamboozeled into this situation and thats the cold fact. Either we get out of it, or accept it, finding excuses for them wont change the state of the game and where its heading, just adds another layer of indulgence on top of the problem.
Unfortunately refund is impossible at this point for many of us, due to steams policy, so thats that. If it were possible I would be the first to refund this piece of scam, in an instant.
Weve been waiting for almost a year bro. We can wait another one or two , makes no difference, that we can agree on.
This is whats wrong with the industry , this heads down mentality " lets wait and see how it plays out". They got their money, what do you have? An unfinished game and promises.
Thats the problem at hand here, and thats why they are allowed to do it and get away with it, because of this mentality amongst the gaming community. Its toxic and not helping us as customers and most importantly not protecting us as consumers.
Its useless, these people think the devs are scammers, thieves, after a year in EA, just because they dont communicate well, and they still think they are not toxic.
Lets put it into another perspective, maybe it will sink into their thick skulls: so an indie studio from Austria, with 80 people, who released 2 games already, great games that sold millions of copies, that gave them a good reputation, will throw everything away to scam players on their next game, possibly sinking the studio?
This is not some shady devs like from the Day Before, go look at that crap to see how real scammers work.
I wonder if these people will come back here after the game is released and open a thread apologizing to the devs for calling them thieves?
An indie studio from Austria who had the backing of Microsoft as publisher, when they released both Ori games. As of now they have no publisher, dont forget Private Division was sold and the fate of this game rests in the hands of Take Two Interactive. If they decide in the coming months not to support the game anymore because of various reasons, one of those reasons being lack of development on the game, decrease in player base or decrease in sales due to the lack of communication from the devs, then its bye bye NRFTW. As for the scamming part , it has the makings of it, shady developers who dont update the game for months and months, a publisher that gets sold to another company and drops the game in early development, lack of communication, a roadmap thats been disregarded, lack of transparency and I can go on and on and on. But whats the point ?
I will come back and apologize to the devs when they will do the same for the lack of transparency and communication towards their paying customers.
All speculation, if this happen, if that happen, maybe you could go the other way with the speculation because like me the publisher that is lacking might see that last 2 Ori games that sold millions and instead of doubt that mere fact adds trust.
And yeah we all agree the communication could be way better, but like you said they have a lot of problems now, so if they go silent but are working on the game i dont mind, im playing something else in the meantime.
Those two Ori games you speak off were released completed, not on early access and they had Microsoft to back them up which its a big deal. This game is in early access. And not a good one at all. As for the publishers, companies want profits, they dont care about your creative decisions or visual art or story. Money talks, and in this case, moneywise, NRFTW didnt sell that well, in fact in one year it lost all its momentum and potential to actually make any money, since 95% of its player base its gone (due to lack of updates and lack of communication) , the game sold 600k copies (which is not good), if you compare it to other titles in EA , like POE 2 or Manor Lords (2.5 mil copies sold), so, if a huge company like Take Two Interactive start looking thru the cracks and see that basically this game is not gonna bring a profit, theyll stop supporting it and then its bb game. And that would be a shame, because Im sure there are a lot of good, talented people working on this game, but because of the stupid decisions of Mahler and co , the game will suffer, company as well and of course customers.
All im saying is this, if you have something, show it, before its too fcking late and it backfires.
We are all playing something else, nobody is holding their breath.
I think the lack of updates and all this situation is cause of the Private Division separation. As they have been saying on forums and some streamers on podcats, the sales of the game are shared with Private Division (obviously) till the rupture and all the legal issues are done. The meaning: nor Take 2 or NRFTW wants to update or promote the game till they are sure that all the money of future and actual sales will be theirs. The sale was on Nov (more less) and today is still undisclosed.
For the other hand, marketing is usually a publisherâs shore and they havenât moved either.
I think that is why they hadnât update even the sligthest hot fix or patchs for months, which is rare considering that they had a rythm with patches. They are holding updates on purprose for the wellbeing of profits.
As you said monewise makes calls, this time isnât an exception. If they cancel NRFTW will be probably several months or even a couple of years after this situation and after they released all the stacked content.
Totally agree with what you said, but the problem still remains. They keep loosing players and the reviews on steam are going down by the day. By the end this âpublisher dealâ is done, game will be unfortunately in the gutter. Its a shame as the game had really good mommentum.
The game will speak for itself once the whole drama is done, they will release a major update and the updates will be more consistent, and not take months, game is great, has a lot of potencial, i dont really understand the doom and gloom when the IP is theirs, this is all legal bullshit, thats it.
This makes much sense, I really hope this is correct. They may have accumulated a lot of new content/updates, that will all be released at once when the separation is complete.
Not directly related to âNo Rest for the Wickedâ but this link updates what happened to Private Division:
The TLDR:
Annapurna Interactive game studios personnel resigned in September of 2024
Private Division was sold to investment group âHavali Investmentsâ in November (although as noted/rumored the sale hasnât finalized)
The previous Annapurna Interactive game stuios personnel have taken over the Private Division portfolio/presonnel and plan to proceed with the in-process games. Itâs not clear as to the name of the new company or whether they are acting on behalf of (or in conjunction with) Havali Investments.
As noted elsewhere, Take-Two will continue to publish/distribute No Rest For The Wicked directly.
It should be noted that the publisher/distributor for a game is typically responsible for all outward communications and decisions of the game (messaging to consumers and deciding on release dates most notably), so I feel that much of the negative feedback and angst regarding No Rest for the Wicked should be re-directed to Take-Two Interactive as they fully control the communications/decisions which encircle the current issues - legal/financial restrictions aside.
well i think thats actually the point. they do NOT (yet). since this is a âin-between publishersâ scenario we just have to wait it out until everything is finished. and all rumors and bits we received hint to exactly that. if i would place a bet, i would say as soon as the contracts with private division have run out we get our long awaited announcement and very shortly after the update drops. i feel like everyone is just waiting for âclapâ so the runners can start their race.
The cutoff portion of my post which you quoted was meant to address that part, I assumed it would be understood by anyone reading this thread.
In terms of your statement âas soon as the contracts with Private Division have run outâ, do you have information/article referencing that this is the hold-up and/or confirming that there is a set date?
If this were to be true, it would give even more reason for frustrated players to bug Take-Two as thatâs where they could get the date which would lead to the ability to produce game-related updates.
nah, they wonât. as they would not profit from it (yet). they would basically promote turnover cash that still floods in pdâs pocket. i do not know the contract and legal situation, and everything we do here is speculation, but as someone who owned a business i can tell u, that i would not have put in work so my predecessor can cash in while i still live on goodwill. i might be wrong, but thats how economics work. you do the work and hours once u earn the cash, not for others.
