There’s no denying that Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps have captured the imaginations of gamers all around the world. Will there be a third Ori title? Well, Moon Studios isn’t sure yet.
The gaming industry certainly hasn’t been lacking in Metroidvanias and roguelikes of late. New titles come thick and fast, meaning that some true greats are passed over simply due to market saturation. Fantastic entries like Hollow Knight (with the talented and ever-compassionate Team Cherry at the helm) and monstrously addictive roguelike of the hour, Hades, do manage to get their well-deserved limelight – but only the very best genre entries usually pull this off.
2015’s Ori and the Blind Forest also became a sensation, a masterpiece from Moon Studios. It introduced the world to the titular character, an adorable little spirit charged with restoring (and piecing together the sad original fate of) the Blind Forest. With sublime controls, achingly beautiful art, and wonderful game design from start to finish, it was critically acclaimed, as was 2020 follow-up, Ori and the Will of the Wisps.
With both titles serving as proven successes for Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch, a sequel may seem to be all but inevitable. According to the team, though, it’s not as clear-cut as that.
In an interview with The Gamer last week, Ori art director Jeremy Gritton and lead artist Daniel van Leeuwen discussed what may be next for the beloved series. While there isn’t another Ori title in the works for now, there may well be another in the hopefully-not-so-distant future. “I think we left the door open, the way that it ends, that even if it’s the end of Ori’s personal story it’s a really robust world… there’s a lot of opportunity for different storytelling,” Gritton said. “Whether it’s a spin-off, or prequel, or anything like that, I think there’s a lot of options there to continue to elaborate on that world and to tell interesting stories. We’ll see what the future holds.”
One thing seems to be for sure: there are more than enough ideas remaining at Moon Studios to form the basis of more Ori games. So many areas, puzzles, and possibilities were scrapped or cut, Gritton goes on, that “you could almost build an entire game out of everything we didn’t use… that’s really what it takes to distill the good stuff.”
The team is clearly as hopeful for the future as Ori’s legions of fans are. There’s no saying what will be next for the popular series (developers alone don’t call the shots when it comes to the creation of sequels), but one thing’s for sure: these titles are of such high caliber that even a Director’s Cut of discarded content would probably be solid gold.