Like a bolt from the blue, Moon Studios’ Ori and the Blind Forest steamed down in 2015, and together with the sequel Will of the Wisps and Team Cherry’s Hollow Knight (2017), they have completely reshaped the landscape around the genre of difficult Metroidvanias, i.e. labyrinth-like platform games.
Both games boasted stunning world-building and gorgeous course design, and the rivalry was a fact. Thomas Mahler, head of the Ori studio, has repeatedly spoken negatively about Team Cherry and Hollow Knight, and perhaps this is a contributing fact to the fact that the studio is now turning to other horizons.
Because while we’re still waiting for the Hollow Knight sequel Silksong, Mahler and the gang seem eager to explore other, well-trodden footsteps. Yesterday Mahler took over Twitter to tell how they thought about the next game. This is what he says:
Ori was our ‘Mario’, this is our ‘Zelda’. That was my thought when I first started prototyping our new project back in 2015. We then committed to Wisps, which allowed us to give this project more time in the oven so that we’d then be able to turn it into a full-blown ARPG.
When asked if the graphic design will be similar to the Ori games, he replies:
Yes. It’s important that our games have a unique art style where you know that this is a Moon Studios game even if you just see a thumbnail. There are too many games out there that look the same. Art Direction matters. A lot.
Besides this, Mahler says that he doesn’t like platform exclusivities, which is one of the reasons why the studio has now chosen the publisher Private Division, instead of Microsoft who published the two Ori games. Finally, we probably have an unveiling to look forward to within the year, hopefully not too long.
I’m feeling like this year is going to be unbelievably exciting! I’m super proud of what Moon Studios is working on and can’t wait for the day we can finally reveal what we’ve been working on – Stay tuned! 🙂
