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The price of No Rest for the Wicked, the action RPG from Ori maker Moon Studios, will jump from $40 to $60 when it eventually hits 1.0 and leaves Steam Early Access. Studio head Thomas Mahler reiterated this plan on Thursday, with the game currently enjoying a "one-time" 40% off sale, and compared Moon's approach to Larian's handling of Baldur's Gate 3, which was $60 even when it began Early Access.
"I'm not trying to do any FOMO marketing here, but yes: when we hit 1.0, No Rest for the Wicked will move to $60, because it's a premium title," Mahler said on X/Twitter. "We've announced this a long time ago and repeated it several times."
"The reason the game launched at $40 was simple: Early Access players should get a discount," he continues. "BG3 launched into Early Access at full price, and personally I never loved that approach. If you support a game early, you should get some extra love."
When Baldur's Gate 3 was confirmed to be $60 from day one – high by both Early Access and Larian's standards – publishing head Michael Douse told PC Gamer that the price reflected the bigger team working on the game as well as its higher production values. He also argued it suited the size and depth of the content that was currently available.
"I feel pretty strongly that not only is the value there at day one of Early Access, but the value of your $60 exponentially increases year on year in extraordinary ways," he said in 2020. "This was proven with [Divinity: Original Sin 2], and BG3 is a new start of a similar journey from the same people."
Mahler and Moon, meanwhile, have opted for a more standard pricing arc: starting low and jumping up when the game is bigger, more polished, and more content-complete. A lower early price rewards and entices early adopters, and the revenue from those early sales can be important for some Early Access games, though some devs are more concerned with collecting maximum player feedback while the metal's still hot.
No Rest for the Wicked's early access blurb has, for quite some time, noted: "We will be raising the price of No Rest for the Wicked for the launch of the 1.0 version. The currently lower Early Access price recognizes the game is still in development and the valuable time it takes for gamers to give honest feedback. We truly value that so many have taken the Early Access journey with us so far, and hope more will join us soon."
In his post, Mahler adds, "I'm only saying this now so nobody's surprised or upset later. If you've been on the fence about Wicked, the current sale is genuinely a good time to jump in."
Both approaches to pricing can work, clearly. Some people are willing to pay more for a bigger initial bite, some people expect a discount for the indirect testing they'll do and the problems or shortfalls they'll inevitably encounter, and then some people will happily wait for games to leave early access before jumping in at all no matter the price. I'm in the latter camp, personally; at most, like with Hades 2, I might sample an Early Access build, confirm it absolutely whips, and then wait for the better version while I play 10,000 other games that are already finished. That's why the only approach I truly dislike is a game never actually leaving Early Access.
