The fallout from Take-Two Interactive’s selloff of its Private Division publishing label continued right this moment as Moon Studios introduced that it has acquired the rights to its newest recreation, No Rest for the Wicked, and is now “totally unbiased.”
It all stretches again to May 2024, when studies that Take-Two was trying to promote or shut Private Division first got here to gentle. Take-Two confirmed that it had certainly offloaded Private Division to an unnamed purchaser—later revealed to be non-public fairness agency Haveli Investments, who signed up former Annapurna Interactive workers to run the present—in November 2024.
The sale included “considerably all of Private Division’s stay and unreleased” video games, with one notable exception: No Rest for the Wicked, which Take-Two stated it might proceed to help.
Fast-forward to now, and all that has modified. “Our writer for No Rest for the Wicked was Private Division, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive,” Moon Studios’ Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol clarify in a developer video posted right this moment. “Take-Two determined to dump Private Division, which was sudden information for us.
“After some deliberation, we noticed a chance. After months of negotiations, we reached an settlement to purchase the publishing rights for No Rest for the Wicked again, in order that Moon Studios might grow to be totally unbiased. This authorized course of took time, and we could not say a lot whereas it was all occurring. But right this moment, we’re excited to announce that it is all carried out and that Moon Studios is now totally unbiased.”
Mahler and Korol stated the change ought to give gamers “extra confidence” in Moon Studios’ imaginative and prescient for the sport, “as a result of we’re free to construct No Rest for the Wicked precisely how we would like, without having to ever go silent once more.”
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The first step in that course of will likely be The Breach, which they stated is the biggest content material replace ever launched for No Rest for the Wicked, set to go stay on April 30. The Breach consists of “huge” new zones “that basically double the dimensions of the world,” in addition to two new weapon archetypes, new enemies, bosses, secrets and techniques, and different content material. Progression and equipment drops have been reworked, a variety of quality-of-life modifications have been made, and gamers can now strive their luck with “Hardcore Characters,” which can undergo permadeath if and once they go down. They will not grow to be inaccessible upon demise, although, however will as a substitute be downgraded to non-hardcore characters that may solely be performed on common realms.
Somewhat unusually, The Breach will not be accessible as a daily enlargement: Existing saves will stay in a “legacy construct,” and you may must replay the sport in an effort to “totally expertise this replace.”
“This strategy ensures The Breach is built-in as seamlessly as potential into the sport,” Mahler says within the video. “We understand this is likely to be a shock for some. Ultimately, the scope of The Breach and the underlying modifications led us right here.”
It seems like a serious overhaul to No Rest for the Wicked, and admittedly it in all probability wants one. Concurrent participant counts have tailed off precipitously since its early entry launch in April 2024, from a excessive of greater than 36,000 to only a few hundred at any given time over the previous six months.
Those participant numbers could have helped immediate Take-Two to unload the sport—CEO Strauss Zelnick stated when he confirmed the sale of Private Division that its video games “weren’t large within the context of our core mental properties at 2K and Rockstar,” and have been thus not one thing the corporate was notably interested by pursuing—however why it opted to carry onto No Rest for the Wicked within the first place is unclear.
In any occasion, Moon Studios plans to “closely help” The Breach within the weeks following its launch, with extra content material drops and an replace for co-op play, which had initially been deliberate for launch earlier than The Breach: Korol stated Moon Studios opted to roll out The Breach first to provide gamers extra content material to play by as soon as co-op goes stay.
