No Rest for the Wicked: Where Moon Studios Is Heading Next After Ori
It’s been a little more than three years now since you’ve last heard from Moon Studios on Xbox Wire. We’ve been very much looking forward to this day and we couldn’t be prouder of our team for having just announced No Rest for the Wicked at The Game Awards 2023.
As you all know, our studio made its bones and built its foundation on Xbox. Ori and the Blind Forest started development as an Xbox 360 title, but ultimately got released on the Xbox One on March 11, 2015. Thanks to all of you, Ori became a gigantic success for our studio and, also thanks to you, we were then able to make a sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, which we shipped on March 11, 2020. Just like we did on Ori and the Blind Forest, we poured our heart and soul into this sequel, and Ori and the Will of the Wisps became a tremendous success as well.
But we’ve been hiding a little secret all along. Even before we started our venture on Ori and the Will of the Wisps, we were prototyping a new game: a top-down action role playing game. And we loved it. However, it quickly became clear that our studio was still too young to embark on this journey; and since we received hundreds of emails from all of you wanting us to make a sequel to the original Ori… well, that’s what we did!
In 2018, we sat down and decided that we were ready to finally kick this ARPG into production. We showed the prototype of No Rest for the Wicked to numerous publishers and decided to partner up with Private Division this time.
Our goal was highly ambitious. We looked at all the ARPGs on the market and pondered on the ideas and dreams we had back in the early 2000s when we played games like Diablo 2 religiously. We all believed that Moon Studios could have a great impact on this genre.
Even though Ori is a ‘Metroidvania’ game, I always considered it a platformer at heart. It was our ‘Mario’, and the idea of Moon Studios making a ‘Zelda’ based on all the things we had learned during the production of the Ori games tickled all of us. We thought it’d be interesting to take inspiration from all these games to ultimately craft an entirely new recipe, and I think that’s what we’ve accomplished!
No Rest for the Wicked is our entirely fresh and new take on the ARPG genre. This game stands upon the shoulders of our history on Xbox, the great things this genre has accomplished, and the outstanding developments we’ve seen in the gaming industry. It is infused with the Moon Studios magic that made Ori so special, with fresh, innovative ideas! You can see some of what we’ve achieved in our announcement trailer – giving you hints at the story and combat mechanics – but we have so much more to tell you…
We can’t wait to show you all a full deep-dive into No Rest for the Wicked during our ‘Wicked Inside’ digital showcase – on March 1, 2024, via our channels.
I hope we’ll be able to make all of you past, present, and future Ori fans proud! And to everyone, we hope you check out this passion project of ours!