Moon Studios

Moon Studios GmbH is an Austrian video game developer founded in 2010.[1] They are best known for their 2015 title Ori and the Blind Forest, for which the studio was awarded the Best Debut award at the 2016 Game Developers Choice Awards.[2] The studio then released a sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, in 2020.

Moon Studios GmbH
TypePrivate
IndustryVideo games
Founded2010 (2010)
Founder
  • Thomas Mahler
  • Gennadiy Korol
Headquarters
Vienna
,
Austria
Key people
Thomas Mahler (CEO)
ProductsOri series
Number of employees
80+ (2020)
Websitemoongamestudios.com

History

The studio was founded in 2010 by Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol. During Mahler's tenure at Blizzard Entertainment, the successes of independent games like Castle Crashers, Limbo, and Braid encouraged him to leave the company to found an independent studio. The two chose the name "Moon Studios" as the company name as they were inspired by John F. Kennedy's quote "We choose to go to the Moon". Mahler described Moon Studios as a "virtual studio", as the team did not rent an office and instead recruited talents from all over the world. Team members came from places such as Austria, Australia, Israel and the United States, and they collaborated with each other using the Internet.[3] The company's headquarters are located in Mahler's native Vienna.[4]

After assembling the team, Moon Studios started creating prototypes. One early prototype was named Warsoup, which is a first-person shooter mixed with real-time strategy elements. Another prototype was named Sein, which mixed Metroidvania and platformer gameplay together. Moon Studios started pitching Warsoup to publishers. Microsoft dismissed Warsoup but agreed to fund Sein, with Microsoft retaining the rights to the intellectual property. With a core team of 10 people alongside several contractors working from home, the game, which would later be renamed to Ori and the Blind Forest, took the team 4 years to develop.[5] The team met with each other for the first time at E3 2014, when the announcement trailer was released.[6] Ori and the Blind Forest received critical acclaim when it was released in March 2015. It was also a commercial success, as it recouped its development in 7 days.[7]

Following the success of Ori and the Blind Forest, the team expanded significantly. As of March 2020, the studio employed more than 80 people, and recruited talents from 43 countries. To facilitate communication, Moon built its own communication tool named "Apollo".[8] The team also organised yearly retreats to ensure that the team can bond together. At E3 2017 they announced a sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, which was released for the Xbox One and Windows 10 on March 10, 2020.[9]

The company is now working on an action role-playing game, which is set to be published by Private Division.[10]

Games
YearTitlePlatform(s)Publisher
2015 Ori and the Blind Forest Windows, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch Microsoft Studios
2020 Ori and the Will of the Wisps Windows, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch Xbox Game Studios

References
  1. Mahler, Thomas (5 May 2015). "Postmortem: Moon Studios' heartfelt Ori and the Blind Forest". Gamasutra. UBM TechWeb. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  2. Staff (16 March 2016). "Witcher 3 wins Game of the Year at 16th annual Game Developers Choice Awards". Game Developers Conference. UBM TechWeb. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  3. Mike Minotti (June 18, 2014). "Ori and the Blind Forest's producer wants his beautiful Xbox One exclusive to play as good as it looks (interview)". Yahoo! Games. Yahoo!, Inc. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Retrieved June 23, 2014.
  4. Mathé, Alexander U. (8 March 2019). ""Die Arroganz in Österreich regt mich auf"". Wiener Zeitung (in German).
  5. Sinclair, Brendan (15 April 2015). "AAA should invest in indies - Ori dev". Gameindustry.biz. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  6. Maher, Thomas (5 May 2015). "Postmortem: Moon Studios' heartfelt Ori and the Blind Forest Exclusive". Gamasutra. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  7. Eddie Makuch (9 April 2015). "Celebrated Xbox One Game Ori and the Blind Forest Profitable in One Week". gamespot.com. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 9 April 2015.
  8. Dring, Christopher (10 March 2020). "Building Ori and the Will of the Wisps with 80 people working from home". Gameindustry.biz. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  9. Joe Skrebels (11 June 2017). "ORI AND THE WILL OF THE WISPS REVEALED". IGN. Retrieved 15 June 2017.
  10. Blake, Vikki (22 December 2019). "Ori and the Blind Forest devs are making an action RPG". Eurogamer. Retrieved 22 February 2020.
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