Moon Studios' Thomas Mahler Shares How Studio Was Saved by Success of Ori and Blind Forest
Without Ori and the Blind Forest, there would be not only the highly promising action RPG No Rest for the Wicked, but most likely Moon Studios itself.
Moon Studios doesn't have a rich portfolio -- essentially, it's a one-series team. However, this one series was enough to bring fame to the Viennese studio. Moreover, Ori and the Blind Forest also saved its developers from bankruptcy.
This was stated by Thomas Mahler in an post published on X. The Austrian dev also added that sales of the entire Ori series amounted to approximately 10 million copies. Ori and the Blind Forest gained significant popularity as an "exclusive title" (initially released only on XOne and PC), allowing the game to be brought to other platforms in the "definitive" edition.
It's worth noting that Ori wasn't intended to be Moon Studios' debut. The company, founded in 2010, planned to enter the market as an independent team with Warsoup - a mix of RTS and FPS.
However, Microsoft rejected the game when the devs approached them in search of a publisher for their title. Instead, the giant from Redmond gave the green light to another project developed by Moon Studios -- Sein, which was ultimately released under the title Ori and the Blind Forest.
Mahler didn't provide many details, but we assume that Moon Studios didn't have a lot of "reserves" after the time spent on developing Warsoup. If the team's first game had failed, the developer probably wouldn't have the resources to work on another project.
The rest is history. Both games from the Ori series are widely considered to be one of the best modern metroidvanias, as well as an example of how beautiful and successful "independent" game from smaller studios can be (although Blind Forest cannot quite be considered an "indie"). The main character also made appearances in other game, such as a warrior in the game Rivals of Aether (where, according to "tierlists," he performs very well) and as a skin in Party Animals.
Moon Studios is currently working on a brand new project: action RPG No Rest for the Wicked. In many aspects, this title is completely different from the developer's previous games -- both in terms of tone and gameplay. Despite this, players are very hopeful for this game -- the developers have gained a lot of trust from fans thanks to the success of the Ori series.
