How Ori and the Will or the Wisps improve one of the most beautiful Xbox games ever

When Ori and the blind forest came back in 2015, Jeremy Gritton couldn’t help but was impressed.

At the time, he was a cinematic artist at Blizzard and worked on blockbusters such as StarCraft and Diablo, and he was particularly struck by the art style of the Xbox One game. The lush, 2D world looked like “a painting that had come to life,” he says. Eventually he got the chance to contribute to that world when he joined Ori developer Moon Studios as art director in the continuation of the game. It was exciting but also daunting: how do you create a sequel to one of the most beautiful games ever made?

For the Moon team it was not just about creating a sequel Ori‘S fantastic world and telling a new story. It was also about improving their craft. “I think 2D games are a dying breed these days; there are not many companies that increase production values ​​for 2D games. We thought that was a shame ”, explains Gennadiy Korol, co-founder of the studio. “As artists, you always want to continue. You have achieved something: how can you improve it? “

Ori and the will of the wisps, which is now available on Xbox One and PC, is in most respects similar to the original game. You still play as a fast-paced ghost named Ori, traversing a dangerous fantasy world in an experience that is partly a 2D platform game, partly Metroid-style action adventure game. There is more attention for action in the future, as well as some other changes, such as new side quests and a new storage system. But the biggest change is probably what the game looks like. It still has the same hand-painted appearance, but with a greater level of depth, detail and movement. And that is largely due to new technology.

The starting point for Wil of the Wisps, as with most games, concept art. “At the start of the project, we just let people go crazy,” says Gritton. “It is almost like there is a collection of fragmented ideas, we have all these cool things and we are starting to figure out how these things can be combined. It’s that interplay between design and art.” One of the unique things about the Ori series, however, is that due to the game’s picturesque art style, concept art sometimes comes directly into the game with just a few changes. A design for a character or creature is split into pieces, rigged up so that it can be animated and then added to the game as such.

Gritton says the team had a solid foundation to build on with the original Blind forest, but there were some changes they wanted to make for the sequel. “When we started, we had this wish list,” he explains. One of the big shifts was that, although it is still a 2D game, the character models are actually 3D this time. This allowed the designers to create a wider range of movements in the animations, which was important with the new focus on fast fighting. Artists could even add secondary animations to characters for a greater degree of depth. Early in the game, for example, you encounter a giant path in a swamp, and it is covered with mushrooms. Each of those mushrooms actually animates independently of the being; when the pad moves muscles in its face to talk, the fungi shift and swing in a way that looks natural.

But the new characters also caused a problem: dropping 3D models in a 2D world can look strange. To circumvent this, the Moon team decided to make the environments more complex. There are multiple layers in each area – you can see monsters and other creatures roaming in the background – and a new dynamic lighting system to add an extra dimension. “The scenes are so much more complex than Blind forest, “Gritton says. In fact, things became so complicated that the developers had to create an internal tool to manage the many components in each area. “That was a huge milestone for the project, because once we had that, we realized that we had the control to do so many things that we wanted to do,” he explains.

One of the core philosophies behind the game is that much smaller details can be combined to make a big impression. There are things that you may not immediately notice while playing – the springy nature of a mushroom you jump on, or the way trees spin and swing in the middle of a storm – but together they help create the illusion of a credible place . “We want everything to be right. We want you to believe that it is a world that could exist, “says Korol. “If you looked at each detail separately, you would think it was small. But if you take 20, and you keep stacking and stacking them, it will be completely different. “

This is all part of what Moon calls the “iterative brushing process,” which essentially means that the team is constantly refining and expanding. Korol notes that it is an “expensive” process, largely because it is so time-consuming, but it is also a process that Ori series are unique premium feeling. And it’s not just about the appearance of the game – it extends to every facet, from the sound to the action. “We talk a lot about feeling. You watch the game and it is beautiful. But how does it feel? says Korol. “We want everything to feel that it was made with love and care.”