No Rest for the Wicked Replaces Leveling With 24 Classes

Moon Studios plans to replace No Rest for the Wicked’s Dark Souls-style leveling system with 24 weapon-based classes when the action RPG leaves early access in March 2027. Game director Thomas Mahler expects some combinations to be stronger and easier to use than others.

The current attribute system will be removed. Players will set their main statistics with Cerim Cores, which can be changed at any time. The cores can also be overloaded beyond their normal limits, although doing so will make the character take more damage.

A player’s class will be determined by the equipped weapon. A spear creates the Dragoon class, while a scythe creates the Harbinger class. Each class has its own resource, earned through combat, that can be spent on traits and runes. Traits provide passive effects, while runes grant active abilities.

Progress will carry between classes. Players can collect traits from different weapons and combine them on one character. Each build can include two offensive traits, two defensive traits, one utility trait and one ascension trait.

Moon Studios plans to include 384 traits across the 24 classes. The studio estimates that the trait system will allow more than 168 billion combinations. Including weapon choices, Mahler estimates that the game will have more than four trillion possible builds.

The Dragoon is built around precise ranged attacks and lightning abilities. It can generate focus with accurate strikes, summon floating lightning lances and throw a large lightning spear. The Assassin focuses on stealth, with abilities that reveal enemy vision cones, enable crouched movement and increase backstab damage. It can also become cloaked near walls and create distractions by knocking on stone.

Mahler acknowledged that some builds will be simpler and more effective than others. “There’ll likely be builds that’ll be easier to play for newcomers that a lot of people will just copy because they’re simple to play and grant good DPS,” he said.

Moon Studios does not plan to eliminate every dominant build. Instead, the studio intends to update the game regularly and add enough options for the strongest combinations to change over time. “The only way to combat that is to keep the game updated and give players so much choice that the meta will naturally shift over time,” Mahler said.

The 1.0 update is expected to roughly double the game’s current content. Planned additions include new areas, an expanded Sacrament town, new enemy factions and bosses, an updated loot system, gem fusions, performance improvements and other changes.

No Rest for the Wicked entered early access with a leveling structure modeled on Souls-like role-playing games. The new class system is intended to give weapon types more distinct abilities and encourage players to test several fighting styles before creating a build.