The launch of The Bad Guys didn’t go as smoothly as many had hoped. While there are no server issues to contend with and no serious optimization or game stability issues, the reception so far has been mixed.
These issues mostly revolve around the status of the Steam Early Access build, but once you get past that, many of Moon Studios’ design decisions will surprise and irritate players.
iGamesNews
While The Evil Dead did avoid controversy early on by being playable offline, with no microtransactions, or even anti-cheat features, many of the issues players encountered seemed unavoidable—unless the game was delayed.
For example, a lot of complaints revolve around, well, How early This early access version is. The current version doesn’t let you remap controls, only the Xbox buttons are shown, and the graphical menu strangely doesn’t offer separate settings.
There was some discussion about stability, but most of the technical issues were related to performance degradation and glitches when traveling through the world. In fact, while the game will get DLSS support at some point, the current version at least offers resolution scaling and a decent dynamic resolution option.
Still, performance issues and a limited number of tweakable settings are among the most common complaints among many Steam player reviews, and The Evil Dead currently has an overall mixed rating based on more than 3,200 player reviews.
For its part, Moon Studios was quick to address player concerns on the Steam forums as well as the official Reddit subreddit. The developers are aware of all the major pain points and have promised to unlock these graphics settings immediately in the game’s next patch, but haven’t provided any timeline for all other settings.
Aside from all the technical issues, the other major factor responsible for the inconsistent reactions has to do with the gameplay. Specifically the types of mechanics in The Evil Dead and how they interact with each other. While the game may look like a Diablo-like action RPG at first glance, it has more in common with Souls games, survival games, and even roguelites than it does with Diablo. many.
This confluence of genres has made it difficult for players to determine what to expect, with many of the reactions so far reflecting confusion or outright hostility to some of the mechanics. For example, the durability of weapons and items is one of the most common complaints, with many lamenting that it limits exploration and is another element that requires ongoing maintenance.
The fixed camera was also seen as making it difficult to truly understand the layout of the environment, causing players to get stuck in certain encounters or avoid venturing into certain areas altogether. Fall injuries, as serious as they are now, have also been a source of debate.
Perhaps most controversial, however, is the game’s limited healing options, which require players to gather ingredients and learn recipes to constantly replenish their health, rather than having clear renewable resources, which are tied to survival mechanics.
The release of “The Evil Dead” may not be Moon Studios’ best work. Even looking at the number of players on Steam, the game’s peak concurrent player count is nearly 34,000, barely equal to Ori and the Will of the Wisps, which remains the team’s largest game released on Steam.
The numbers can – and often do – improve over the weekend, but so-so word of mouth could hurt its prospects there. We’ll keep you updated as the Early Access version of No Rest for the Wicked progresses.