Following up an indie darling like 2015's Ori and the Blind Forest is no easy feat. After five years, and a series of delays, Moon Studios is ready to take on the task with the launch of Ori and the Will of the Wisps. After the massive success of The Blind Forest, the developers face the challenging tasks of recapturing the beautiful and heartbreaking look and feel of the original game, while building on the world and mechanics with a much larger sequel.
Fans of the original game will be excited to hear that the core cast of surviving characters from the Blind Forest are back and cuter than ever from the first moments of Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Once again, the game kicks off with a touching prologue that introduces the core themes of family, teamwork, and friendship. The events that set this game's adventure into motion aren't quite as devastating as the start of The Blind Forest, but don't worry, some tearjerker moments definitely arrive as the game progresses.
Once the prologue wraps up and Ori's adventure begins in earnest, players are thrown back into a familiar gameplay loop, but with some exciting new changes and a much larger setting to explore. For players who skipped The Blind Forest, the game progresses in Metroidvania fashion with Ori platforming around a massive map and unlocking new abilities at key story points or after reaching other milestones. Players eventually unlock a series of warp points, so although there is the usual amount of Metroidvania backtracking, it rarely feels like much of a chore or hindrance.
In terms of what it new, there is a ton to consider. First off, the game features an autosave, which may feel like a no-brainer, but is a massive change from The Blind Forest. The first game required players to use energy to save manually, which could lead to some real frustrations either when energy was expended on something else or when players had just forgotten to save after a long session, died, and lost a ton of progress. That entire pain point has been removed and the autosave works perfectly. Don't worry, there's still plenty of other abilities that require energy resource management, so that aspect hasn't been entirely removed from the game.
The talent tree system of the first game has also been entirely replaced with a much more interesting series of decisions. The first game featured three branching paths of abilities, but players would eventually just want to get them all and have a ton of benefits activated. This time around, players are spending their resources to purchases upgrades for abilities, but only a certainly number of upgrades and abilities can be active at once. This means players have to both make tough decisions on where to spend their limited resources and also which abilities and bonuses to have active during different points in the game. For example, players unlock the ability to cling to walls very early on, but may want to swap that ability out for a second or third attack ability instead during combat heavy points in the game. The ability to swap out abilities and bonuses at any point in the game adds a very interesting level of strategy that really makes the game feel like a more challenging and deeper experience.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps is still primarily driven by a linear narrative this time around, but the game has added a handful of side quests and a wonderful cast of supporting characters to supplement the main story. As Ori ventures outside of the forest of Nibel there are lots of other friendly critters who want to help him on his quest and could use a little assistance themselves. Early on, there could be a bit of concern that the additional characters, side quests, and dialogue could distract from the powerful core narrative that made the first game so special, but it quickly becomes apparent that ever interaction in the world is helping drive Ori closer to his goal, while also adding exciting new challenges for players to complete in areas that they would be visiting anyway.
We'll avoid plot details and spoilers, but rest assured that the story in Will of the Wisps is just as powerful, touching, and engrossing as what Blind Forest players experienced in 2015. The game follows Ori's quest to reunite with Ku, after the adorable adopted siblings are separated while Ku is learning to fly during the prologue. All the friendly creatures of the game's world come together to try and push back darkness and decay and help Ori, Ku, Naru, and Gumo reunite as a family once more.
The combination of the original game's narrative charm and solid platforming mechanics with a much longer story and more intricate skill trees and bonuses come together to make a must-play game for Xbox One or PC owners. The game seems poised to be another massive hit and proves itself as one Microsoft's most exciting console exclusives (even though The Blind Forest is now available on Switch). The fact that the game is available on Game Pass at day one and also features cross save functionality with the PC version makes it even more accessible and, although the rest of March is still full of other exciting game releases, this is definitely an early addition to the must-play list.
Note: In terms of performance we did run into some points where the game slowed down and a handful of crashes, but these issues will likely be resolved with the day one patch.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps releases on March 11 for PC and Xbox One. Game ZXC was provided an Xbox One copy for this review that featured PC cross-save functionality. The review playthrough was completed partially on PC and partially on Xbox One.
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
The breathtakingly stunning game from Moon Studios, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a sequel to the wildly popular Ori and the Blind Forest. This Metroidvania transports players into a magical, detailed 2D world of platforming, where they can unlock new abilities as they progress through a captivating story.
