Moon Studios dev says if Ori is its ‘Mario,’ its next game is its ‘Zelda’

moon studiodevelopers behind Ori and the Forest of the Blindis working on a new game that the studio’s creative director says will be like its “Zelda counterpart.”

About a decade ago, Moon Studios released its first game, Ori and the Blind forest, a Metroid that was an instant hit with critics and fans alike, and released a sequel in 2020, Ori and the Will of the WispsEarlier this week, Moon Studios creative director Thomas Mahler spoke about the developer’s next game, an action role-playing game, comparing Ori to Mario and the next game to Zelda.

“Ori is our ‘Mario,’ this is our ‘Zelda,'” Mahler wrote on his personal Twitter account. “That was my first idea when I first started prototyping our new project in 2015. Then we committed to using Wisps, which allowed us to give this project more time in the oven so that we could It becomes a full-fledged ARPG.”

Mahler also responded to a number of other Twitter users who had questions about the next game, with one asking if the next untitled game would have a similar art style. “Yes. The important thing is that our game has a unique art style, even if you only see the thumbnail, you know it’s a Moon Studios game,” Mahler replied. “There are so many games out there that look the same. Art direction matters. A lot.”

Another user pointed out that they wanted it to come to PlayStation, presumably because the Ori game was previously an Xbox exclusive and later launched on Nintendo Switch, though it hasn’t released on PlayStation at this time. Mahler confirmed this, noting that making the game available on all platforms was the main reason the developer signed the game with publisher Private Division.

No word on the upcoming game yet, but any comparison to Zelda is a bold one, so we’ll have to wait and see how it turns out.