A director on a mission to revolutionize the action-RPG genre.
Moon Studios CEO and Creative Director Thomas Mahler stated that the studio’s next game is Zelda-like, as opposed to the Mario-esque nature of Ori, its previous IP.
“Ori was our ‘Mario’, this is our ‘Zelda’,” Mahler’s tweet reads, and then he goes on to describe the scope of his next game. “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.”
The studio’s next game is also coming to PlayStation, courtesy of publisher Private Division. This is in contrast to Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps, two games that Moon Studios only released on Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Mahler’s tweet became a sort of Q&A session, revealing his immense passion for games and game design. When questioned about his game development method, he stated that the initial step is to develop a prototype that can compete with and be equally entertaining as existing games in the market; otherwise it won’t make it to production. He also stresses the importance of having a unique artistic style and visual identity, enabling players to instantly recognize the game as a product of Moon Studios.
According to a subsequent tweet from Mahler, the studio’s next project is advancing smoothly. The director spent a week presenting the game’s development progress to Private Division, which was abuzz with excitement and amazement. In an earlier job posting, Moon Studios mentioned several more games such as Diablo, Zelda, and Dark Souls as sources of inspiration for its upcoming release, but expressed its goal to surpass them and transform the game into something unprecedented for ARPG veterans.
Moon Studios is an Austrian indie developer best known for its 2015 hit Ori and the Blind Forest. The game was a huge success upon release, leading the studio to expand significantly and hire more than 80 employees from 43 different countries. It’s later sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, also received critical acclaim for its evolved mechanics and artistic excellence. With the success of these two titles, Moon Studios has become a prominent developer in the industry, and is now working on a new project that promises to be even more ambitious than its predecessors and peers.
