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Ori and the Will of the Wisps interview - Expanding life, magic, & whimsy

We spoke to the folks at Moon Studios about Ori and the Will of the Wisps about what has gone to expanding the sequel through music, storytelling, and a larger, more populated game world.

TJ Denzer

February 27, 2020 4:20 PM

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Ori and the Blind Forest blew players away when it came out in 2015. Years later, Ori and the Will of the Wisp is ready to bring players back to Ori’s magical world and there’s a lot of high hopes for the game. Nobody recognizes this like Moon Studios. The team has poured their hearts and souls into ensuring that not only is the Ori sequel a meaningful step forward for the series, but also everything fans want it to be. We caught up to Senior Producer Daniel Smith and Composer Gareth Coker to talk about how that is coming together.

A large part of building Ori and the Will of the Wisps is in creating the story, environment, and musical depth that will bring players’ emotional investment back into the game.

“We’ve gone to great lengths to up the ante in terms of our storytelling,” Smith told us. “We have some very talented writers, and I think we’re just really proud of the way things have turned out.”

You can check out the full interview just below.

Gareth Coker expanded upon Smith’s statements, describing how they expanded the world to make it feel more alive.

“It’s really cool that we were able to achieve what we achieved in Blind Forest with just four characters,” Coker explained. “Something we were looking at on [Will of the Wisp] was, ‘well let’s give the people what they want. Let’s give them more characters.’ So in this game, there’s just so many characters with their own stories, their own arcs, and their own questlines, and that allows our animation team and our storytelling telling team to do more and just make the world feel more alive.”

Truly, Ori and the Will of the Wisp does come off with all of the whimsical flavors of Blind Forest, but with more of everything to reach out to players and invite them back into that magic. Check out the entire interview above to find out more about how Moon is working to accomplish this effort.

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TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.