previousgame, this time a more modern
(andforgiving) autosave system takes its
place.Nodoubt the purists are already
daubingtheirplacards with words of
outrage,butto us that signals a chance
todrinkintheartistry of the world with a
slightlylowerheart-rate since we won’t be
worryingabout messing up and replaying
sizeablechunks again.
It’sbeena long time coming now,
however.Firstannounced a whole two
yearsagoatE3 2017, we’ve seen very little
fromOri’ssequel since then. Only a brief
glimpseofnew gameplay at E3 2018 broke
thesilencebefore we were introduced to
anenormousspider boss at this year’s
conference.It’s a fearsome foe whom Ori
willneedtoharness all their movement
abilitiestoslay, meanwhile we’ll have to
getoverourfear of arachnids the size of
mountainsinorder to even keep hold of the
padwhenit shows up. On the bright side,
we’vegotnearly a year to work on that.
Perhapsthe long time in gestation
comesdownto Moon Studios’ “crazy
iterative”approach to development. It was
suggestedatthe last E3 that the team
workedontwo thousand iterations of the
builduntilit was happy to show it. QABOVEGareth
Cokeris back
on soundtrack
duties.His work
on the original
was great.THELOVABLEGUARDIANSPIRITJOURNEYSBEYONDNIBEL
ORI AND THE WILL
OF THE WISPS
Q PUBLISHER XBOX GAME STUDIOS / DEVELOPER MOON STUDIOS / ETA 11 FEBRUARY 2020or fans of ethereal
Metroidvanias featuring
giant spiders scary
enough to rival Limbo’s,
we have some good
news: your incredibly
specific tastes are about to be satiated.
Ori And The Will Of The Wisps, sequel to the
2015 sleeper hit Ori And The Blind Forest, is
releasing on 11 February.
That means you have to sit impatiently
on your hands for less than a year before
you can drink in those ghostly visuals and
once more take control of guardian spirit
Ori. The fundamentals are intact here, so
once again it’s a game of ebb and flow,
where the flow comes from beautifully-
paced platforming sections and the ebb
from genuinely challenging puzzles. No,
shut up – you had to watch a walkthrough
on YouTube for the last
game. Ahem.
There’s a radical
rethink when it comes to
saving, though. Instead
of the old-school,
manually placed ‘Soul
Links’ which saved
your progress in theMore Xbox news at gamesradar.com/oxm
PREVIEW
THE OFFICIAL XBOX MAGAZINE 041