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On March 11th, 2020, Moon Studios released
Ori and the Will of the Wisps on Windows and

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Xbox One. Will of the Wisps is the follow
up to Ori and the Blind Forest which released

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five years earlier on March 11th, 2015. And
while Ori and the Blind Forest is a great

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game in its own right, Moon Studios pushed
the Ori formula to its limit in Will of the

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Wisps.

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Moon Studios grew from a team of about fifteen
employees in 2015 to over 80 as they worked

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on the second Ori game. Since their inception
in 2010, Moon Studios has allowed the majority

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of its employees to work remotely from their
homes, across what is now 43 different countries.

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This flexibility lets them hire talent from
all over the world. Artists and animators

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from companies like Pixar, Disney and Blizzard
joined in to help craft Ori’s world and

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characters. Chris McEntee, who worked on the
platformer Rayman Legends was scooped up to

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work on level design. Moon Studios even hired
Milton Guasti, the developer behind AM2R,

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a popular Metroid 2 fangame. Well, popular
with most people.

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This larger crew helped make Ori and the Will
of the Wisps even bigger and better than its

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predecessor, with more characters, more features,
monkeys, refined controls, and more levels

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as well as an entirely new combat system.
Ori can now beat the ever loving crap out

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of enemies with a large arsenal of weapons,
and the game sports huge, intricate boss battles

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for the player to test their skills against.
In the end, all of this work paid off. Reviewers

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heaped praise all over Will of the Wisps,
and outlets everywhere discussed how Moon

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Studios had crafted a masterpiece. And that
praise is well deserved. If you take nothing

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else from this video, let it be that Ori and
the Will of the Wisps is one of the most polished,

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impressive Metroidvanias ever made.

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But, there was another thing people were saying
about Will of the Wisps, and it started well

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before the game even released. After the Ori
and the Will of the Wisps gameplay trailer

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was revealed at E3 2018, one of the lead game
directors at Moon Studios, Thomas Mahler,

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gave an interview with the Daily Star, explaining
that they were looking to make the perfect

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Metroidvania. This involved studying and researching
the games that came out since Ori and the

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Blind Forest. Mahler mentioned by name two
of these Metroidvanias specifically: Axiom

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Verge and Hollow Knight.

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This interview was shared on ResetEra, an
internet forum dedicated to discussing video

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games. The thread contained a variety of opinions
surrounding the strengths and weaknesses of

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both Ori and the Blind Forest and Hollow Knight.

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Mahler, a regular on internet forums such
as ResetEra and NeoGAF, posted in the thread

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as well, responding to comments and questions
about the upcoming game. One user, going by

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the name “Jeffrey Guang” expressed concern
about Ori and the Will of the Wisps copying

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too much from Hollow Knight.

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I hope Moon Studio doesn't lose sight on what
makes the first game that extra special by

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focusing too much on replayability.

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...Please don't be a Hollow Knight clone,
which will be disappointingly hollow.

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Thomas Mahler responded to this post as well,
assuring “Jeffrey” that their concerns

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were nothing to worry about:

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...don’t worry about us copying others too
much - we always look at what happens outside

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our team, but I don’t think people will
make many connections to Hollow Knight and

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the likes.

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And well... Then the game came out.

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Experience the new look and feel of the Ori
series’ second outing. Where they took a

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glance at Hollow Knight and said “I guess
we could do that.”

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In fact Ori and the Will of the Wisps takes
plenty of cues from the other major metroidvanias

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of the past few years. That’s right, I’m
talking about Hollow Knight.

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The first game had one original thought in
the form of having you manually plonk down

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your save points which was slightly wobbly
in execution so naturally it’s been kicked

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to the curb in favor of making a game more
like Hollow Knight.

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If you haven’t played these games, to be
a little bit reductive for a second, this

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might piss people off, but the base of it
does feel a little bit like Hollow Knight...

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Let’s start by going over all the Hollow
Knight ideas they borrowed, which hey, I applaud

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Moon Studios for doing. That’s a good model
to borrow ideas from.

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If I failed, I knew it was because of my own
mistakes. Huh, that reminds me of another

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game. Oh yeah!

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I mentioned that Will of the Wisps not only
features swordplay, but a shard system similar

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to Hollow Knight's charms.

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Will of the Wisps introduces a system that
hues out much more closely to the charms in

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Hollow Knight.

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So it's got a similar badge system…

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I think people have made this comparison,
and it’s probably fair, to Hollow Knight’s

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badge system. A little bit similar.

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Very similar.

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Speaking of exploration, there's a map maker
that helps you chart each new area, in case

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you're looking for another bit of Hollow Knight
influence.

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And there’s an NPC hidden around the world
that sells you maps.

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It's even got the one mapmaker dude you keep
running into in the world who sells you a

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map for the current area.

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But that’s not the only Hollow Knight influence.
One of the skills is basically the exact same

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healing skill.

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Moon Studios must have looked at Hollow Knight’s
freakishly creepy Deepnest and were like “Hmm…

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can we top that?” Well they didn’t, but
they tried.

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Because Hollow Knight was popular and did
well and has therefore gained the favor of

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the giant money machine, all praise its benevolent
wisdom.

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So it’s pretty clear the team enjoyed Hollow
Knight. Not a bad thing, it’s a great game.

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The comparisons to Hollow Knight came immediately,
with several users on ResetEra mentioning

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that they could see the clear inspirations
from Hollow Knight. One user going by the

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name “Mindsale” even created a thread
titled “Is Ori & The Will O’ The Wisps

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Pastiche or plagiarist?”. Thomas Mahler
jumped into the thread clarifying that Hollow

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Knight wasn’t really the inspiration for
Will of the Wisps, instead citing games like

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Final Fantasy VII, Dark Souls and The Legend
of Zelda: A Link to the Past. The reaction

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to Mahler’s posts were mixed, with a number
of users actually disagreeing with him and

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calling him a liar and a salty manbaby. In
a surprising turn of events for an online

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gaming forum, the entire thread turned into
a complete dumpster fire. Things became so

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heated that the thread was locked by a moderator
just over three hours after it was created.

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A few months later, the other lead developer
at Moon Studios, Gennadiy Korol, addressed

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the similarities during a Reddit AMA. Korol
explained that while they expected some Hollow

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Knight comparisons, a lot of the systems in
Will of the Wisps that people compare to Hollow

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Knight already existed in early prototypes
dating back to 2015.

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So what exactly is going on here? Mahler has
said in a number of interviews that they studied

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Hollow Knight and that the game inspired them.
The comparisons have been pointed out numerous

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times, by fans and reviewers all over the
internet. But at the same time, both co-founders

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of Moon Studios say that Hollow Knight wasn’t
the inspiration for much of anything in Will

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of the Wisps. What’s the cause of this discrepancy?
How similar is Ori and the Will of the Wisps

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to Hollow Knight?

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Before we dive into the comparisons surrounding
Will of the Wisps, there’s a whole other

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issue that needs to be discussed. It seems
when the discussion of inspiration and borrowing

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ideas in gaming comes up, a lot of people
immediately jump to words like “rip-off”

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and “clone”. And discussions immediately
becomes hostile. So let’s take a bit of

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time to talk about what inspiration and imitation
between games actually looks like.

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The question of what constitutes a rip-off
is hard to answer. That ResetEra thread I

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mentioned earlier is a good testament to that.
And it’s a question that has been brought

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up many times before. In fact, the issue of
rip-offs in the games industry has been discussed

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by some of the greatest minds of this generation.

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Alright, I gotta set the record straight.
Something is really pissing me off… If we're

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gonna call stuff a rip-off, let's call it
what it is. Notch took another game, ripped

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it off, created Minecraft.

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This is Keemstar. Most well known for his
entertainment and social news YouTube channel

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DramaAlert, Keemstar is a very polarizing
online celebrity. But before Keemstar became

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the big YouTube star he is today, his first
big break came from handling the PR and marketing

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for the 2011 Xbox Live Arcade game, FortressCraft.
If you were to take a quick glance at FortressCraft,

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you might think it’s just a rip-off of another
game that was popular around that same time:

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Minecraft. But let’s take a closer look,
and use this game as a case study for what

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makes people perceive a game as a rip-off.
So let’s hear the pitch for FortressCraft.

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Here’s Keemstar explaining the game in an
interview with MLDxGaming:

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So just tell us exactly what is FortressCraft?

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FortressCraft is a genre that was developed
a long time ago. It was actually a genre that

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doesn't have a name. A game was the inspiration
for Minecraft which has been very very successful,

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but it's only on the PC. In the same genre
of block building, if you want to call it

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that, we've developed the game FortressCraft,
which is very similar but very unique and

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different at the same time.

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Keemstar’s first point here is that Minecraft
didn’t create the block-building genre,

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but itself took ideas from another game. This
is absolutely true. Minecraft’s creator,

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Markus Persson, or Notch, was heavily inspired
by another game, called Infiniminer, when

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creating Minecraft. Keemstar’s point was
echoed by the lead developer of FortressCraft,

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Adam Sawkins. According to Sawkins in an Ars
Technica article, the similarities found between

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FortressCraft and Minecraft are simply part
of the voxel, sandbox genre both games belong

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to. Sawkins, who had previously worked on
games from the Formula 1 and Burnout series,

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compared this to the racing game genre, saying:

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All racing games have cars, tracks, tarmac,
trees, armco, AI, overtaking, braking, chicanes,

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and chevrons. To remove any of those things
means it's no longer a racing game, apart

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from maybe trees. If I were to remove voxel
rendering, infinitely mutable worlds, perlin

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generation, or—as one YouTube comment accused
me of stealing from Minecraft—grass, then

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I no longer have a 'Minecraft clone.' I also
no longer have a game!

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Notch didn’t see it that way. In that same
Ars Technica article, he shared his thoughts

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on games like FortressCraft and Terraria:

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Both FortressCraft and Terraria appear to
be inspired by Minecraft, which in turn was

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inspired by many other games, including Infiniminer,
Dwarf Fortress, and Dungeon Keeper. However,

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I do not believe you can achieve something
great or interesting by merely attempting

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to emulate something successful. It becomes
especially embarrassing if you publicly deny

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any inspiration when it's painfully clear
how much of a copy it is… FortressCraft

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is an obvious attempt to just take something
popular and clone it as closely as possible.

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I still think it's important that people are
allowed and able to do things like that, but

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it's hardly graceful.

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Accusations like this haunted Keemstar and
Sawkins throughout FortressCraft’s relevance.

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Keemstar tried his best to dispel these criticisms...

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Don't fucking talk shit about me and my fucking
game, or I'm gonna fucking talk shit about

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your whole goddamn crew…

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But Public Relations wasn’t really Keemstar’s
forte back then. Sawkins directly responded

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to Notch’s comments with an open letter
detailing how FortressCraft had unique features

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that separated it from Minecraft such as more
detailed graphics with shaders and reflections,

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rayguns... trampolines. Sawkins also said:

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FortressCraft is ‘basically Minecraft’
in the same way that Minecraft is ‘basically

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Infiniminer’. It’s just that Minecraft
has been out a hell of a lot longer, and I

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have an enormous list of plans and ideas I
want to put into FortressCraft as time goes

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on.

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It’s undeniable that both Minecraft and
FortressCraft started out as clones. If you

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look at the video description for the very
first video of FortressCraft uploaded to YouTube,

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Sawkins wrote in the description:

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Minecraft clone, running on the Xbox...

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If you look at the first Minecraft video Notch
ever posted, the description reads:

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This is a very early test of an Infiniminer
clone I'm working on.

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So what is the actual difference here? Why
does Minecraft get away with cloning Infiniminer,

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while FortressCraft gets flogged and crucified?
Well, for one, Minecraft expanded new gameplay

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mechanics not found in Infiniminer. Infiniminer
was an abandoned team based competitive mining

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game. Notch took those elements and added
survival and RPG mechanics, to transcend beyond

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Infiniminer and create something new. FortressCraft
was pretty much just Minecraft’s creative

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mode, with a few game modes like tag thrown
in as well. But if you seriously look at these

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games, it’s hard to believe that FortressCraft
innovated on Minecraft anywhere near as much

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as Minecraft innovated on Infiniminer. Sawkins'
defense to this point was that FortressCraft

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hasn’t been around as long as Minecraft,
so many of the unique ideas Sawkins had planned

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for the game hadn’t been added yet, stating
that FortressCraft was just the first chapter.

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FortressCraft is a novel with chapters unwritten.

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But this point leads into the bigger reason
why I think so many people called FortressCraft

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a rip-off. For whatever new ideas and mechanics
it might have added to the voxel survival

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sandbox genre, it was clearly overshadowed
by the perception that FortressCraft was rushed

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and unpolished, banking its success entirely
on its similarity to Minecraft.

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It seems like FortressCraft’s actual main
selling point was that it would be like Minecraft,

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except unlike Minecraft, it was on the Xbox
Live Arcade. You have to remember this was

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2011, which was like a million years ago.
Minecraft wasn’t running on every device

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known to man yet. There were a lot of young
kids out there who couldn’t play Minecraft,

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and there were YouTubers like Keemstar who
had built their entire fanbases around this

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identity of playing Xbox Live and being a
hardcore console gamer. So FortressCraft was

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the perfect game for people like Keemstar
to market to their primarily console gamer

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audience. Just watch the official FortressCraft
launch trailer and you’ll see what I mean.

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This ain't about me. This is about the console
gamer. This is about Xbox.

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I am not a PC gamer. I have not been a PC
gamer and never will be. I am a console gamer.

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That is a reality. That's the way it is.

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But when I looked into it, I found out it's
not exactly Minecraft. But this... I've been

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waiting as long as everybody else for this
to come out; checking every day. I stayed

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up till 12 when I heard that it was supposed
to c-

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It’s also clear that they knew people were
going to call it a rip-off so they tried to

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deflect as much as possible. Even the game’s
trailer brings up how this game technically

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isn’t ripping off Minecraft.

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Getting kinda worked up over FortressCraft
being like Minecraft. I haven't like, looked

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into it or anything, but I think Minecraft
is based on another game itself.

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In the end, FortressCraft performed incredibly
well, selling over 2 million copies. It was

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clear that the game did well financially.
But as time has passed, Keemstar has spoken

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a bit more candidly about his real thoughts
on FortressCraft in terms of its design and

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quality, saying in 2020:

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That was my first big, big break. Not a good
game, shitty game, but people bought it.

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It was a Minecraft clone but it was the only
one available on Xbox, so of course fucking

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kids are gonna buy it.

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Brilliant, brilliant move.

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As for Sawkins, he actually continued development
on FortressCraft, creating a sequel called

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FortressCraft Evolved, which blended the standard
Minecraft-type gameplay with Factorio, mixing

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in logistics and tower defense mechanics to
make something more unique. So it seems like

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Sawkins was honest when he said he had a lot
of ideas to make FortressCraft different from

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Minecraft. As for FortressCraft: Chapter 1,
I don’t think people will ever view it as

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all that innovative or unique, and it will
go down in history as one of the many video

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game clones created to cash in on what was
popular at the time. Sawkins actually re-released

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the original FortressCraft on Steam to celebrate
the game’s 10th anniversary. So you can

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check it out if you want, if you have a PC
that is...

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So what can we take away from that little
example? First, games take ideas from other

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games all of the time. It’s perfectly natural
and it’s even responsible for the creation

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of one of the greatest video games ever made.
Second, video games that exist within the

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same genre are bound to have similarities.
Racing games all have cars. First Person Shooters

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are all in first person. Roguelike are all
fucking bullshit. But a game needs to do at

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least something unique and different from
other entries in the genre, otherwise, it

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might be called a rip-off.

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Finally, the single biggest part to what makes
a game seem like a rip-off is if it feels

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rushed, poorly made, and is released shortly
after another specific, popular game in the

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same genre. Even if a lot of the comparisons
between those games might boil down to conventions

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in said genre. This is especially true when
the genre itself is very young and undefined.

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This is why early FPS games were called Doom-clones
and early third-person open world games were

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called GTA-clones.

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But what if the genre is old? Minecraft and
FortressCraft were very fresh experiences

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when they first came out, so what about the
genres that have been around a long time?

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How does that impact our ability to talk about
rip-offs and inspiration? Since Ori and the

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Will of the Wisps and Hollow Knight are both
Metroidvanias, let’s talk about the Metroidvania

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genre as a whole.

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The word “Metroidvania” is a portmanteau
of the words “Metroid” and “Castlevania”

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which themselves are portmanteaus of the words
“Metro”, “Android”, “Castle” and

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“Transylvania”. And somehow this portmanteau
of a portmanteau, a portmantwo, if you will,

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now describes an entire genre of 2D action-adventure
platform games which feature open worlds and

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power up based progression systems.

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It’s safe to say that Metroid, released
in 1986 in Japan, was one of the earliest

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proper “Metroidvania” games. Metroid featured
a non-linear side-scrolling world that the

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player primarily progressed through by collecting
permanent upgrades such as the morph ball,

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high jump and missiles. This set it apart
from other adventure platform games at the

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time like Zelda 2 and Castlevania 2, which
relied more on finding key items and solving

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cryptic puzzles.

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00:18:22,660 --> 00:18:27,870
Other games such as Blaster Master and Wonder
Boy also used this Metroidvania formula, but

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it wasn’t until Super Metroid released in
1994 that the genre really had its founding.

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Super Metroid set the stage for what a modern
Metroidvania game would look like, with a

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giant map and ability upgrades. Three years
later, Konami released Castlevania: Symphony

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of the Night. The previous Castlevania games
were straightforward level-based romps, with

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Castlevania 2 experimenting a bit with an
open world and RPG elements. In general, these

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games were also hard as balls.

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According to the assistant director for Symphony
of the Night, Koji Igarashi, they wanted to

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keep the length of previous Castlevania games
without making this game as difficult. So

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they looked to a different game as inspiration.
Igarashi explains this in a GDC talk back

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from 2014. Well, a translator explains:

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We really wanted to extend the life of the
game and the one game that popped up in our

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heads was Legend of Zelda, an exploration
filled action game. Pretty much our entire

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team, including myself, were huge fans of
the game and wanted to make something very

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similar. So now you know, the origin of inspiration
actually wasn’t metroid. … and of course

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I have the utmost respect for that game, and
the folks behind it.

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So as it turns out, Symphony of the Night
naturally created a Metroid-like game just

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by trying to make a side-scroller that progressed
like The Legend of Zelda. But people who played

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Symphony of the Night and the games that followed
it like Circle of the Moon and Aria of Sorrow

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saw similarities to Metroid. People started
calling these Metroid-like Castlevania games

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“Metroidvanias” with the earliest instance
I could find of someone using the phrase dating

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all the way back to the pre-civilized world
of 2001.

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And thus the grandparents of the genre were
born, and the term Metroidvania was eventually

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co-opted to mean any game that follows the
design philosophies of the Metroid and Castlevania

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games. And… There's a lot of debate about
whether or not it’s a good term to even

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use, with people suggesting alternatives like
Mapformers, Platform-Adventures. Platform-RPGS,

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non-linear 2D action platformers, action adventure
2D platformer adventure-like non-linear action-RPG-like

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00:20:43,540 --> 00:20:48,550
non-closed-world side-scrollers, and open-world
Mario games.

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00:20:48,550 --> 00:20:52,041
Regardless of if you like the term or not,
one thing the phrase “Metroidvania” does

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do well is demonstrate how much these games
are influenced by those two franchises. But

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at the same time, they will mix other games
in as well. Axiom Verge drew ideas from other

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00:21:03,030 --> 00:21:10,280
NES classics such as Contra, Bionic Commando,
Rygar and Blaster Master. Guacamelee, originally

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00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:15,670
inspired by another indie game, Castle Crashers,
combined the Metroidvania genre with brawler

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elements. Ori and the Blind Forest mixed the
Metroidvania genre with the more fluid platforming

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found in Super Meat Boy. Want to play a Metroidvania
but with Pokemon? There’s Monster Sanctuary.

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Maybe a Metroid pinball game? There’s Yoku’s
Island Express. Metroidvania with anime girls?

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Actually, I don’t think any of those exist.

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00:21:35,890 --> 00:21:40,190
And then, of course, there’s Hollow Knight.
Developed by Team Cherry, most of what we

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see in Hollow Knight comes from the minds
of William Pellen and Ari Gibson. Aside from

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the Metroid and Castlevania games, Hollow
Knight took inspiration from a lot of old

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00:21:49,140 --> 00:21:55,780
school NES and Super Nintendo games like Mega
Man X and Zelda II. William Pellen explains:

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We’ve stolen a lot of ideas.

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But there was one game in particular that
people saw a lot in Hollow Knight

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00:22:03,700 --> 00:22:06,850
Hollow Knight is a metroidvania souls-like
game.

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00:22:06,850 --> 00:22:09,720
This is more of a metroidvania souls-like.

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00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:12,490
Hollow Knight takes a lot of cues from the
Dark Souls series...

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00:22:12,490 --> 00:22:16,720
It’s really the Dark Souls of games that
are trying to be the Dark Souls of Dark Souls

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without actually being Dark Souls...

294
00:22:18,820 --> 00:22:19,820
Dark Souls…

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00:22:19,820 --> 00:22:20,820
Dark Souls…

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00:22:20,820 --> 00:22:21,820
Dark Souls…

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00:22:21,820 --> 00:22:22,820
Mario…

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Hollow Knight is pretty much just Dark Souls.

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00:22:23,820 --> 00:22:27,910
Of course, there was a certain craze back
in the day of comparing everything to Dark

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00:22:27,910 --> 00:22:32,549
Souls. But the comparisons to Hollow Knight
are probably more apt verses something like

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Cuphead. After all, a lot of people seem to
consider Dark Souls a Metroidvania as well,

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at least in some vague sense.

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00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:46,620
The original Dark Souls game is also a Metroidvania
game, just in 3 dimensions instead of 2.

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Dark Souls, itself a cousin of the Metroidvania…

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00:22:49,460 --> 00:22:53,429
And I love Symphony of the Night, but no non-2D
games have captured the essence of Metroidvania,

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I'd argue since Metroid Prime, and then I
knew where we all were and was free hereafter

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to happily halberd hellspawn.

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00:22:58,669 --> 00:23:03,480
This just shows how vague and malleable terms
like “souls-like” and “Metroidvania”

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00:23:03,480 --> 00:23:09,040
are to a lot of people. It’s this vague
definition of difficulty and exploration.

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Is trying to find the bathroom in a crowded
mall after eating Chipotle a “Metroidvania

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00:23:13,350 --> 00:23:17,929
souls-like” experience? Team Cherry has
never really championed Dark Souls as one

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00:23:17,929 --> 00:23:21,870
of their main inspirations, but they do acknowledge
it.

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00:23:21,870 --> 00:23:25,260
Maybe a bit of Dark Souls in there as well.
That type of stuff.

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00:23:25,260 --> 00:23:29,500
When pressed, they usually downplay the comparisons
a lot of people tend to make, saying that

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00:23:29,500 --> 00:23:33,860
Hollow Knight feels similar to Dark Souls
because both games draw on early Nintendo

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games.

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00:23:34,990 --> 00:23:38,760
You have a new generation of people who haven't
played Nintendo games, who haven't played

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00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:45,200
those early games. So they don't have the
touchstones like Zelda 2 to talk about and

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00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:51,960
it's much easier to say "like Souls" as a
capsule, as a modern game, that emphasises

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all of those qualities of the unknown, and
discovery and challenge and overcoming challenge

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00:23:58,690 --> 00:24:00,570
to access new areas.

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00:24:00,570 --> 00:24:04,700
Although they do admit that the corpse running
mechanic in Dark Souls directly inspired what

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00:24:04,700 --> 00:24:09,230
they did in Hollow Knight. They’ve also
cited the Rally mechanic from Bloodborne as

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00:24:09,230 --> 00:24:12,400
a loose inspiration for Hollow Knight’s
soul and focus system.

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00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:17,340
When you hit an enemy in Bloodborne, you regain
a bit of health... There's a parallel there

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00:24:17,340 --> 00:24:22,110
with our soul system which is just that you
hit, and you stock the soul, which you then

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00:24:22,110 --> 00:24:24,020
use to heal at your own rate.

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00:24:24,020 --> 00:24:28,530
However, there was another comparison some
people made during the game’s early days.

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00:24:28,530 --> 00:24:33,360
A game that appears to have had no influence
over Team Cherry: Ori and the Blind Forest.

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00:24:33,360 --> 00:24:37,080
Again, Hollow Knight's cartoony, slightly
Ori and the Blind Forest, esc style...

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00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:41,890
The atmosphere created in this Ori and the
Blind Forest meets Salt and Sanctuary artstyle...

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00:24:41,890 --> 00:24:46,501
The comparisons to Ori were not quite as prevalent
as the comparisons to Dark Souls, but they

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00:24:46,501 --> 00:24:49,690
happened enough to warrant a comment from
Team Cherry themselves.

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00:24:49,690 --> 00:24:55,270
When you're coming out as an unknown developer
and you have no game, people have no touchstones.

335
00:24:55,270 --> 00:24:59,419
Everyone who saw this game, or I’m not going
to say everyone, but certainly, there was

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00:24:59,419 --> 00:25:03,539
a lot of sentiment which was “Oh, it looks
like that game Ori.” Which we’ve never

337
00:25:03,539 --> 00:25:07,610
played. But it looks fantastic and apparently
it is fantastic by all accounts and I’m

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00:25:07,610 --> 00:25:10,570
sure we’ll be able to get some time once
we…

339
00:25:10,570 --> 00:25:12,669
There’s a sequel soon so we’ll just wait
‘till then

340
00:25:12,669 --> 00:25:15,799
We’ll wait till the sequel and buy a bundle
pack or something.

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00:25:15,799 --> 00:25:20,460
So even before Ori and the Will of the Wisps
was being compared to Hollow Knight, Hocllow

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00:25:20,460 --> 00:25:25,039
Knight was being compared to Ori and the Blind
Forest. Which begs the question. Why have

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00:25:25,039 --> 00:25:29,320
the claims surrounding Will of the Wisps been
so much louder? There’s certainly a case

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00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:33,020
to be made that Will of the Wisps shares more
design elements with Hollow Knight than that

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00:25:33,020 --> 00:25:37,390
game did with Blind Forest. But I think another
big factor in all this is the fact that the

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00:25:37,390 --> 00:25:42,930
Hollow Knight fanbase is much bigger than
the Ori fanbase. For example, the Hollow Knight

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00:25:42,930 --> 00:25:47,789
subreddit and Discord server are both over
10 times larger than the Ori counterparts.

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00:25:47,789 --> 00:25:52,611
That’s not to say that Hollow Knight is
a better game than either Ori 1 or 2. But

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I think it contributes to why so many more
people are seeing similarities between Hollow

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00:25:56,750 --> 00:26:01,690
Knight and other games. And I’m not just
talking about Will of the Wisps.

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00:26:01,690 --> 00:26:07,450
In December of 2019, Nintendo showed off the
trailer for a game called Gleamlight. This

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00:26:07,450 --> 00:26:12,870
game was developed by a Japanese company called
DICO. The company is a decent sized publisher

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00:26:12,870 --> 00:26:17,320
who even helped with the development of another
recent Metroidvania game, Bloodstained: Ritual

354
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:22,630
of the Night: Koji Igarasha’s spiritual
successor to Symphony of the Night.

355
00:26:22,630 --> 00:26:26,880
The immediate reaction to Gleamlight’s trailer
was that it was a cheap knock off of Hollow

356
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:33,240
Knight. The game’s publisher, D3, addressed
these accusations in a Polygon article saying:

357
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:37,150
Gleamlight is still in development and it’s
not final at this moment… The dev team is

358
00:26:37,150 --> 00:26:40,970
aware of Hollow Knight but the game has nothing
to do with that title.

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00:26:40,970 --> 00:26:46,780
Very few seemed to actually believe this statement.
In his review of the game, NintendoLife reviewer

360
00:26:46,780 --> 00:26:49,380
Stuart Gipp said the following:

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00:26:49,380 --> 00:26:52,990
Gleamlight's developers have claimed that
their game isn't a rip-off of Hollow Knight.

362
00:26:52,990 --> 00:26:58,670
They're right. If it was a rip-off, then it'd
share some kind of inspiration, some mechanical

363
00:26:58,670 --> 00:27:05,419
flair. The creativity, the baseline of enjoyable
moments, some solid fundamentals. It's all

364
00:27:05,419 --> 00:27:10,710
missing. It's not a rip-off of Hollow Knight,
it's a stupid child's drawing of it.

365
00:27:10,710 --> 00:27:15,340
So what exactly is it about Gleamlight that
makes people call it a rip-off? Much like

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00:27:15,340 --> 00:27:20,049
FortressCraft, the game looks very rushed
and unpolished, and it was released somewhat

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00:27:20,049 --> 00:27:25,530
recently after Hollow Knight’s huge success.
On top of that, the game shares a number of

368
00:27:25,530 --> 00:27:30,940
similarities. They are both platformers with
somewhat dark atmospheres and enigmatic protagonists.

369
00:27:30,940 --> 00:27:36,240
They both feature a melee combat system where
the primary method of attack is a short range

370
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:41,600
sword swipe. And some of the areas bear a
resemblance to the areas found in Hollow Knight…

371
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:44,850
but is any of this really all that unique?

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00:27:44,850 --> 00:27:48,730
With FortressCraft it was a lot easier to
notice, because there were very few games

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00:27:48,730 --> 00:27:52,909
that looked like Minecraft in terms of game
design. But the things that Gleamlight has

374
00:27:52,909 --> 00:27:58,140
in common with Hollow Knight are not very
new ideas. For example, Hollow Knight’s

375
00:27:58,140 --> 00:28:03,650
moody atmosphere is not particularly original,
with some early impressions calling the game

376
00:28:03,650 --> 00:28:04,650
Tim-Burton-like.

377
00:28:04,650 --> 00:28:07,420
It brings to mind "The Nightmare Before Christmas"
almost.

378
00:28:07,420 --> 00:28:09,559
It's a little bit "Tim Burton".

379
00:28:09,559 --> 00:28:12,420
There’s definitely going to be a connection
to that.

380
00:28:12,420 --> 00:28:17,770
It’s got that like “Tim Burton”, or
gothic vibe to it. That type of thing.

381
00:28:17,770 --> 00:28:21,289
And remember how people compared Hollow Knight
to Ori and the Blind Forest when it was coming

382
00:28:21,289 --> 00:28:26,470
out? A lot of that was probably due to the
fact that both games were non-pixel art based

383
00:28:26,470 --> 00:28:30,850
metroidvanias featuring small-sized protagonists.

384
00:28:30,850 --> 00:28:37,230
As for combat, melee combat in a Metroidvania
isn’t particularly unique either. The Castlevania

385
00:28:37,230 --> 00:28:41,690
games have primarily used melee combat as
well. Hollow Knight’s combat seems to draw

386
00:28:41,690 --> 00:28:46,740
somewhat from the side scrolling combat of
Zelda 2, which in case you didn’t know,

387
00:28:46,740 --> 00:28:47,820
is really old.

388
00:28:47,820 --> 00:28:52,840
As for areas… Well forests in real life
are green, so I don’t think that’s fair

389
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:57,640
to say that’s a rip off. And there are purple
crystals in the real world called Amethyst

390
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:02,880
crystals. So that’s not really that unique
of a concept to Hollow Knight either. I mean,

391
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:06,110
come on, have people not been playing 1.17?

392
00:29:06,110 --> 00:29:12,160
On top of all of this, Gleamlight is barely
even a Metroidvania. I know that term is vague,

393
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,140
but Gleamlight doesn’t really emphasize
exploration in any way. You travel through

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00:29:16,140 --> 00:29:21,360
each room linearly, and there’s no map at
all. There are power ups that you gain but

395
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,820
it really is the bare minimum.

396
00:29:23,820 --> 00:29:27,830
All that being said, it’s certainly possible
that Gleamlight was just an attempt to cash

397
00:29:27,830 --> 00:29:32,010
in on Hollow Knight’s popularity. But if
that’s the case, then the developers really

398
00:29:32,010 --> 00:29:36,990
had no idea what it was that made Hollow Knight
such a good game. Honestly, I think this is

399
00:29:36,990 --> 00:29:42,140
less to do with developer intentions and more
to do with how we as gamers discuss video

400
00:29:42,140 --> 00:29:43,140
games.

401
00:29:43,140 --> 00:29:47,630
One of Hollow Knight’s first exposures to
a wide audience came in 2015. On November

402
00:29:47,630 --> 00:29:52,830
19th, a friend of the dev team and the voice
of Sly, Graig, posted about Hollow Knight

403
00:29:52,830 --> 00:29:58,580
on Reddit, linking to the Ferocious Foes trailer
on YouTube. This post received over 25,000

404
00:29:58,580 --> 00:30:04,540
upvotes, and hundreds of comments came flooding
in. And what were people saying? Well, they

405
00:30:04,540 --> 00:30:10,470
were comparing Hollow Knight to other games.
Dark Souls. Super Metroid. Bloodborne. Symphony

406
00:30:10,470 --> 00:30:17,480
of the Night. Ori and the Blind Forest. Dust
Elysian. Castle Crashers. Shovel Knight. Child

407
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:21,870
of Light. Mario. Uhh… Bleach.

408
00:30:21,870 --> 00:30:28,200
How many of these games did Team Cherry actually
take inspiration from? Like 3. Whenever we

409
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:33,610
see a new video game, our brains immediately
try to find some kind of analogy, other games

410
00:30:33,610 --> 00:30:38,320
that resemble it, to help us get an idea of
what the game is like. Our brains are pattern

411
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:43,100
recognition machines, seeing things even if
they aren’t even there. Anyone who’s been

412
00:30:43,100 --> 00:30:48,490
online in the last year should know this painfully
well. So it’s pretty much impossible for

413
00:30:48,490 --> 00:30:51,909
new games to not be compared to old ones.

414
00:30:51,909 --> 00:30:55,690
Gleamlight was dropped into the limelight
in the middle of an Indie World direct, and

415
00:30:55,690 --> 00:30:59,970
I can tell you, a large chunk of the Hollow
Knight fanbase watches Indie World directs

416
00:30:59,970 --> 00:31:05,330
in the futile hope that there might be even
just a monochrome of Silksong news presented.

417
00:31:05,330 --> 00:31:10,049
So when Gleamlight popped up, and shared a
few superficial similarities with Hollow Knight,

418
00:31:10,049 --> 00:31:12,440
the comparisons happened immediately.

419
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:17,020
Now those comments on Hollow Knight from 2015
were mostly positive. There were still a few

420
00:31:17,020 --> 00:31:21,580
people calling Hollow Knight a rip-off, but
in general people were kind to the game. And

421
00:31:21,580 --> 00:31:26,670
that was probably because Hollow Knight looked
like a pretty good game. As for Gleamlight,

422
00:31:26,670 --> 00:31:31,010
well… I’m gonna have to say something
mean here, so if there are any developers

423
00:31:31,010 --> 00:31:36,740
at the Japanese company DICO watching this
video, please plug your ears. Gleamlight’s

424
00:31:36,740 --> 00:31:39,730
trailer looked really shitty. Like the game
just looks bad.

425
00:31:39,730 --> 00:31:44,710
So when a whole bunch of Hollow Knight fans
saw this game, and saw how bad it looked,

426
00:31:44,710 --> 00:31:49,049
it was inevitable that everyone would start
calling Gleamlight a rip-off. But if you actually

427
00:31:49,049 --> 00:31:53,850
played Gleamlight, it doesn’t seem much
like Hollow Knight at all. I mean, it’s

428
00:31:53,850 --> 00:31:58,240
still a bad game. I got every achievement
after four hours of playtime and I can confirm

429
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:04,230
it’s a bad game. But I think that has more
to do with DICO being primarily a publisher

430
00:32:04,230 --> 00:32:08,789
and having very little experience with game
development than them trying to quickly cash

431
00:32:08,789 --> 00:32:10,620
in on Hollow Knight’s success.

432
00:32:10,620 --> 00:32:14,030
Of course, that’s not to say that Hollow
Knight hasn’t inspired other developers.

433
00:32:14,030 --> 00:32:20,789
There have been quite a few games to pop up
such as Haiku the Robot, Lone Fungus, Chiaroscuro,

434
00:32:20,789 --> 00:32:27,800
Curse of the Sea Rats, Ender Lilies, Unbound:
Worlds Apart, and Zapling Bygone, which all

435
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:32,799
claim Hollow Knight as an inspiration in some
way. But one Hollow Knight inspired game in

436
00:32:32,799 --> 00:32:38,120
particular, Crowsworn, ended up getting some
heat for looking too much like Hollow Knight.

437
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:42,960
When they posted their pre-Kickstarter trailer
on Twitter, a number of tweets were posted

438
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:45,720
calling the game a rip-off of Hollow Knight.

439
00:32:45,720 --> 00:32:49,390
Once the game was brought to the attention
of the wider Hollow Knight fanbase, partly

440
00:32:49,390 --> 00:32:55,000
due to me tweeting about it over on my twitter
at twitter.com/mossbag69, discussion became

441
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:56,910
a lot more positive.

442
00:32:56,910 --> 00:33:01,669
Since then, Team Cherry’s marketing director,
Leth, has even joined the Crowsworn team.

443
00:33:01,669 --> 00:33:05,550
In an interview with the The Indie Gamer,
Leth made it pretty clear that Team Cherry

444
00:33:05,550 --> 00:33:07,290
has no issues with Crowsworn:

445
00:33:07,290 --> 00:33:12,980
Look, this game looks cool. We don’t mind
if people look at Hollow Knight and go “I

446
00:33:12,980 --> 00:33:14,010
want to do that too”.

447
00:33:14,010 --> 00:33:17,910
Leth also pointed out how it just makes sense
that small-team indie studios working in the

448
00:33:17,910 --> 00:33:22,120
Unity game engine would make games that look
similar to Hollow Knight.

449
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:31,330
There’s only so much you can do with Unity
for a 2D game. And the fact is that Team Cherry

450
00:33:31,330 --> 00:33:38,590
and Ari were very clever with how they developed
Hollow Knight in a way to make it super efficient

451
00:33:38,590 --> 00:33:45,950
and it’s also very good. So if you depart
from that to a great degree you risk making

452
00:33:45,950 --> 00:33:48,100
something bad.

453
00:33:48,100 --> 00:33:53,350
And when Crowsworn went live on Kickstarter,
it hit its $100,000 goal in less than three

454
00:33:53,350 --> 00:33:58,549
hours. So the game clearly has value to a
lot of people. Even Team Cherry left a comment

455
00:33:58,549 --> 00:34:01,299
on their Kickstarter saying their game looks
great.

456
00:34:01,299 --> 00:34:06,150
Now to be fair, I understand why some people
making these comparisons are so negative about

457
00:34:06,150 --> 00:34:11,169
Crowsworn. Crowsworn does wear its Hollow
Knight inspiration on its sleeve. But from

458
00:34:11,169 --> 00:34:14,970
what we have seen of Crowsworn, it appears
that they do have ideas of their own, and

459
00:34:14,970 --> 00:34:19,649
are putting work into making their game stand
out as a unique Metroidvania. The developers

460
00:34:19,649 --> 00:34:24,230
reference the Donkey Kong Country games as
an inspiration, and yeah, these things are

461
00:34:24,230 --> 00:34:30,280
basically barrel cannons. They’ve American,
or I guess Canadianized, the game quite a

462
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:34,760
bit with the inclusion of guns, which I thought
was a pretty glaring omission from Hollow

463
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:36,129
Knight, to be honest.

464
00:34:36,129 --> 00:34:40,210
In reality the vast majority of the games
within the Metroidvania genre draw direct

465
00:34:40,210 --> 00:34:45,030
inspiration from Metroid and Castlevania,
combining elements from those games with other

466
00:34:45,030 --> 00:34:50,500
games like Super Meat Boy and Dark Souls to
try to create something new. This isn’t

467
00:34:50,500 --> 00:34:55,430
controversial and those games are seldom called
rip offs. Then Hollow Knight came along and

468
00:34:55,430 --> 00:35:00,230
became extremely popular, resulting in both
a lot of people inspired to make games similar

469
00:35:00,230 --> 00:35:03,770
to Hollow Knight, and a lot of people seeing
Hollow Knight’s mechanics in other games,

470
00:35:03,770 --> 00:35:07,360
whether or not that was actually intentional
on the developers’ part.

471
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:12,280
So what makes it okay to draw ideas from Metroid,
like Axiom Verge does, but not draw ideas

472
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:16,720
from Hollow Knight, like Crowsworn does? I
think a lot of people think it’s fine to

473
00:35:16,720 --> 00:35:22,501
copy Metroid and Castlevania because those
games are old, and Hollow Knight is new. But

474
00:35:22,501 --> 00:35:27,070
keep in mind, the gaming industry is very
different now than it was in the 80s and 90s.

475
00:35:27,070 --> 00:35:32,349
There are now thousands upon thousands of
indie games being released every single year,

476
00:35:32,349 --> 00:35:37,220
so we are likely going to see iterations of
game ideas and designs happen faster and more

477
00:35:37,220 --> 00:35:42,620
frequently. It took so long for games to take
from Metroid because indie developers weren’t

478
00:35:42,620 --> 00:35:48,460
really a thing until Cave Story came out in
2004, which is a Metroidvania by the way.

479
00:35:48,460 --> 00:35:51,200
Well, depending on who you ask.

480
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:54,891
At the end of the day, as long as a game does
enough to set itself apart from the games

481
00:35:54,891 --> 00:35:59,530
that inspired it, we really shouldn’t be
upset about clones or rip-off or however old

482
00:35:59,530 --> 00:36:04,050
the games it takes from are. And just watching
the trailer for a game sometimes isn’t enough

483
00:36:04,050 --> 00:36:07,600
to know if that’s the case. Seriously, the
amount of people saying that Hollow Knight

484
00:36:07,600 --> 00:36:12,010
looked like Ori after watching the Ferocious
Foes trailer is kinda crazy considering how

485
00:36:12,010 --> 00:36:19,050
different those two games are.

486
00:36:19,050 --> 00:36:25,200
Enter Ori and the Will of the Wisps. You know,
the game this video is supposed to be about.

487
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:28,599
After the completion of Ori and the Blind
Forest, it wasn’t a done deal that Moon

488
00:36:28,599 --> 00:36:35,060
Studios was going to make a sequel. The co-founders,
Thomas Mahler and Gennadiy Korol, weren’t

489
00:36:35,060 --> 00:36:39,070
exactly onboard with making a sequel, until
they started thinking about the ways a sequel

490
00:36:39,070 --> 00:36:44,710
could improve on Blind Forest’s weaker parts,
comparing it to how Super Mario Bros. 3 improved

491
00:36:44,710 --> 00:36:46,000
on the original game.

492
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:51,550
If you would see Ori and the Blind Forest
as the original Super Mario Bros... The sequel

493
00:36:51,550 --> 00:36:53,980
could actually become like Super Mario Bros.
3.

494
00:36:53,980 --> 00:36:57,950
Sort of like what Super Mario Bros 3 was to
Super Mario Bros.

495
00:36:57,950 --> 00:37:03,900
We want Ori and the Will of the Wisps to become
to Blind Forest what Super Marios 3 was to

496
00:37:03,900 --> 00:37:05,070
the original Super Mario Bros.

497
00:37:05,070 --> 00:37:13,160
My next guests say this game will be the best
Ori and will be to Ori what Mario 3 was to

498
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:17,680
Super Mario Brothers. I guess that's a quote.
That's impressive.

499
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:21,970
And part of that process of refining the sequel
was to look at the other Metroidvanias that

500
00:37:21,970 --> 00:37:23,880
were released since the first game.

501
00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:27,780
In terms of the gameplay we really just wanted
to push it a step further so we looked at

502
00:37:27,780 --> 00:37:31,680
all the Metroidvanias that also came out after
Blind Forest. We just basically wanted to

503
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,560
say "How can we even take it a level further
than that?"

504
00:37:35,560 --> 00:37:39,330
Like we saw earlier in this video, Hollow
Knight was one of the games that Moon Studios

505
00:37:39,330 --> 00:37:43,960
looked at when creating Will of the Wisps.
But since the game has come out, Mahler and

506
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:48,630
Korol have both denied taking any inspiration
from Hollow Knight. When I first caught wind

507
00:37:48,630 --> 00:37:54,390
of all this back in March 2020, I went on
a bit of a rant. I posted to my twitter account

508
00:37:54,390 --> 00:38:00,140
over at twitter.com/mossbag69 claiming that
Moon Studios had obviously taken several elements

509
00:38:00,140 --> 00:38:05,160
from Hollow Knight, and were now blatantly
denying it. Now I know this is a really rare

510
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:10,000
occurrence for Twitter, but my tweets were
perhaps a bit reactionary and ignorant to

511
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:14,360
the greater context surrounding the situation.
I hadn’t even played the Ori games when

512
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:19,150
I made those tweets. But that was over a year
ago. Since then I have taken the time to play

513
00:38:19,150 --> 00:38:23,800
both Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and
the Will of the Wisps. I also played through

514
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:28,210
Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures a few times
just for good measure. I also researched the

515
00:38:28,210 --> 00:38:31,619
development of the Ori games to better understand
how they were made.

516
00:38:31,619 --> 00:38:37,720
So, have my thoughts changed? Well, yes, but
it’s complicated. There really isn’t a

517
00:38:37,720 --> 00:38:42,100
clear cut answer here. So let me just answer
this question in two parts.

518
00:38:42,100 --> 00:38:46,130
Was Ori and the Will of the Wisps influenced
by Hollow Knight in some way?

519
00:38:46,130 --> 00:38:47,570
Most likely.

520
00:38:47,570 --> 00:38:52,780
Did Ori and the Will of the Wisps directly
copy mechanics or ideas from Hollow Knight?

521
00:38:52,780 --> 00:38:54,270
Probably not.

522
00:38:54,270 --> 00:38:58,130
In order to get to the bottom of this, I’m
going to be digging into a number of interviews

523
00:38:58,130 --> 00:39:02,080
Moon Studios has participated in, as well
as looking through posts Thomas Mahler has

524
00:39:02,080 --> 00:39:07,349
made on the websites ResetEra and NeoGAF.
Mahler has been open about sharing his opinions

525
00:39:07,349 --> 00:39:13,360
in gaming forums. And once we dig into his
posts, we soon realize something. Thomas Mahler

526
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:15,820
doesn’t really like Hollow Knight.

527
00:39:15,820 --> 00:39:20,240
Mahler first played Hollow Knight right as
the game came out in February 2017.

528
00:39:20,240 --> 00:39:25,450
After playing the game for a few hours, Mahler
posted in the NeoGAF thread dedicated to discussing

529
00:39:25,450 --> 00:39:30,300
Hollow Knight. Mahler criticized the game’s
slow pacing, calling it too slow when compared

530
00:39:30,300 --> 00:39:36,330
to games like Super Metroid, Symphony of the
Night and Blind Forest. In later posts, Mahler

531
00:39:36,330 --> 00:39:40,880
also said he isn’t a fan of Hollow Knight’s
“simplistic combat”. And while he didn’t

532
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:44,920
say this next point was criticism, Mahler
also talked about how he thinks that games

533
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:49,050
like Axiom Verge and Hollow Knight don’t
really do anything new to push the Metroidvania

534
00:39:49,050 --> 00:39:53,650
genre forward, as opposed to the Ori games
which blend the genre with the more fluid

535
00:39:53,650 --> 00:39:56,650
platforming found in games like Super Meat
Boy.

536
00:39:56,650 --> 00:40:01,540
Mahler’s criticisms of Hollow Knight are
certainly not unique. As much as I love Hollow

537
00:40:01,540 --> 00:40:05,730
Knight, it’s not a perfect game. There are
aspects of it that just won’t do it for

538
00:40:05,730 --> 00:40:10,180
some people. One of Hollow Knight’s biggest
stumbling points for a lot of players is its

539
00:40:10,180 --> 00:40:15,170
pacing. Hollow Knight is a massive game with
a huge map and the movement upgrades are few

540
00:40:15,170 --> 00:40:20,800
and far between. As a result, some areas feel
like they are missing content or satisfying

541
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:25,190
moments to keep the player engaged. This can
seriously affect the game's sense of pacing

542
00:40:25,190 --> 00:40:29,970
and progression if the hook of exploration
doesn’t grab the player. This has been pointed

543
00:40:29,970 --> 00:40:32,030
out by a few reviewers here on YouTube.

544
00:40:32,030 --> 00:40:35,850
And even with every ability it can take a
while to get where you need to because the

545
00:40:35,850 --> 00:40:42,400
map is absolutely massive. Massive and boring!

546
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:45,609
And the world is fun to explore, but asks
for a bit more than what these kinds of games

547
00:40:45,609 --> 00:40:47,440
usually entail given its sheer size.

548
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:52,460
A building of tension in exploration, story,
and gameplay complexity, that ends with nothing

549
00:40:52,460 --> 00:40:58,500
instead of a climax. I’d call this poor
pacing.

550
00:40:58,500 --> 00:40:59,500
Boooooorriiinnnggg!

551
00:40:59,500 --> 00:41:03,790
Even people who praised Hollow Knight as the
best Metroidvania ever made such as Game Maker’s

552
00:41:03,790 --> 00:41:06,990
Toolkit have issues with how long the game
goes on.

553
00:41:06,990 --> 00:41:11,849
I felt finished and satisfied with the game
after dispatching Hollow Knight for the first

554
00:41:11,849 --> 00:41:16,210
time, and when I discovered online that there
was a lot more to do, I didn't really have

555
00:41:16,210 --> 00:41:19,829
the drive to carry on and seek out yet more
secrets.

556
00:41:19,829 --> 00:41:24,070
In terms of combat, Hollow Knight’s combat
is more simple on the surface when compared

557
00:41:24,070 --> 00:41:27,910
to what is featured in Ori and the Will of
the Wisps, especially in the first half of

558
00:41:27,910 --> 00:41:32,440
the game, when the player doesn’t have a
very complex moveset. This also spills over

559
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,089
into affecting the games pacing as well.

560
00:41:35,089 --> 00:41:50,510
Up first is that it takes far too long to
go from this… to this.

561
00:41:50,510 --> 00:41:54,270
This means that there is a long stretch of
game time wherein the player has very few

562
00:41:54,270 --> 00:41:59,410
options during combat compared to the potential
you have at the end. Things don’t stay quite

563
00:41:59,410 --> 00:42:03,140
as simple as they are right at the beginning,
but they don’t get really interesting until

564
00:42:03,140 --> 00:42:04,500
you’re close to finished.

565
00:42:04,500 --> 00:42:09,020
And it is fair to say that Hollow Knight doesn’t
really do anything unique. There were a number

566
00:42:09,020 --> 00:42:11,190
of reviewers pointing this out.

567
00:42:11,190 --> 00:42:14,839
Although Hollow Knight may have many of the
same trappings we've seen countless times

568
00:42:14,839 --> 00:42:18,410
before, it stands above thanks to the strength
of its artistry and execution.

569
00:42:18,410 --> 00:42:23,310
The mechanical aspects of the game aren't
anything truly innovative or unique, but they're

570
00:42:23,310 --> 00:42:27,190
responsive, easy to learn and most of all
completely fair.

571
00:42:27,190 --> 00:42:30,520
Hollow Knight maybe doesn't rewrite the book
on the new abilities aspect, but it does make

572
00:42:30,520 --> 00:42:33,480
them feel meaningful and very important to
your progression.

573
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:38,240
I should point out that while Mahler has discussed
his problems with Hollow Knight a number of

574
00:42:38,240 --> 00:42:42,290
times, he has still consistently said that
he has a lot of respect for Team Cherry. And

575
00:42:42,290 --> 00:42:47,030
he has also constantly said he’s happy that
more and more great Metroidvanias like Hollow

576
00:42:47,030 --> 00:42:51,310
Knight have released since Blind Forest. But
he’s also made it very clear that the game

577
00:42:51,310 --> 00:42:53,339
just didn’t do it for him, saying:

578
00:42:53,339 --> 00:42:58,420
I get that fans might see similarities between
the games, but I wasn't even a fan of the

579
00:42:58,420 --> 00:43:00,880
game when I played it, so…

580
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:05,290
However, Mahler has done more than just talk
about how he dislikes Hollow Knight. He’s

581
00:43:05,290 --> 00:43:09,240
also gone back and forth on whether or not
he actually finished the game. He said he

582
00:43:09,240 --> 00:43:13,930
did finish it in a post from shortly before
Will of the Wisps released, but then he said

583
00:43:13,930 --> 00:43:18,420
he didn’t finish it after everyone started
comparing the two games a month later. At

584
00:43:18,420 --> 00:43:23,460
another point he compared the sales figures
of the two games after another user said Blind

585
00:43:23,460 --> 00:43:29,170
Forest just came and went while Hollow Knight
was extremely popular. And in general, Mahler

586
00:43:29,170 --> 00:43:33,520
has expressed a very competitive mindset whenever
he talks about Hollow Knight.

587
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:38,440
So it’s clear that Mahler has a complicated
relationship with Hollow Knight. For comparison’s

588
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:41,661
sake, the only thing Team Cherry has ever
said about the Ori games is that they’ve

589
00:43:41,661 --> 00:43:43,670
heard they are fantastic.

590
00:43:43,670 --> 00:43:47,599
Of course, Team Cherry are pretty tight lipped
in general, and don’t have much of an online

591
00:43:47,599 --> 00:43:56,140
presence, either personally or professionally.
Probably to a fault sometimes.

592
00:43:56,140 --> 00:44:00,800
Mahler has the opposite problem. He is just
really open about sharing his opinions, and

593
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:05,600
even he admits that it lands him in hot water
sometimes. Back in March of this year, he

594
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:09,960
posted a public apology on his Twitter account
after calling the developers behind No Man’s

595
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:16,640
Sky and Cyberpunk 2077 snake oil salesmen
in a post he made to ResetEra. To be fair,

596
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:21,060
Mahler made some interesting points in his
post, and honestly, I kind of agree that hype

597
00:44:21,060 --> 00:44:26,360
culture in gaming incentivises studios to
overpromise what their games will be. But

598
00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:31,400
he probably should have avoided calling specific
people like Sean Murray “snake oil salesmen”.

599
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,150
In his Twitter apology, Mahler said the following:

600
00:44:34,150 --> 00:44:38,540
I always really liked the idea of gamers and
developers alike having an open discourse

601
00:44:38,540 --> 00:44:43,330
about games, so that we could all figure out
together how to improve the artform.

602
00:44:43,330 --> 00:44:47,801
I think this is why Mahler is so open about
sharing his opinions on Hollow Knight. He

603
00:44:47,801 --> 00:44:53,130
likes discussing game design with other gamers,
and he isn’t afraid to share unpopular opinions.

604
00:44:53,130 --> 00:44:56,590
And I don’t think there’s any problem
with him saying he doesn’t like Hollow Knight.

605
00:44:56,590 --> 00:45:00,670
But it’s the amalgamation of his attitude
and statements surrounding Hollow Knight that

606
00:45:00,670 --> 00:45:05,560
make me think his feelings towards the game
go deeper than just not liking it. I think

607
00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:10,079
Mahler has a competitive mindset when it comes
to game development, and he viewed Hollow

608
00:45:10,079 --> 00:45:15,020
Knight’s massive success as a challenge
to overcome with Will of the Wisps.

609
00:45:15,020 --> 00:45:19,260
Looking at the language used by Mahler and
Korol to describe Will of the Wisps, it really

610
00:45:19,260 --> 00:45:23,470
seems like the goal for this game was for
it to surpass Hollow Knight and become the

611
00:45:23,470 --> 00:45:29,690
“perfect Metroidvania.” In an interview
with the Daily Star in July 2018, he said

612
00:45:29,690 --> 00:45:31,140
the following:

613
00:45:31,140 --> 00:45:35,521
A lot of what we’re doing with Will of the
Wisps is trying to perfect the genre, perfect

614
00:45:35,521 --> 00:45:40,800
Metroidvania. We looked at a lot of games
that have come out since the first Ori - Hollow

615
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:45,520
Knight, Axiom Verge - and studied them and
researched them. Now it’s our turn to take

616
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:50,660
it to the next level. That’s how Ori evolves.
We look at what’s been done since the last

617
00:45:50,660 --> 00:45:55,960
game, and we push it further. We take it further.
It’s pretty bananas!

618
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:57,579
Korol has said this as well:

619
00:45:57,579 --> 00:46:01,940
We really want to make sure that absolutely
every single aspect of a Metroidvania can

620
00:46:01,940 --> 00:46:02,950
be perfected.

621
00:46:02,950 --> 00:46:07,670
And we can see this was the case before Will
of the Wisps. With Ori and the Blind Forest,

622
00:46:07,670 --> 00:46:12,230
the goal was to push the platforming found
in Metroidvania games further than ever before,

623
00:46:12,230 --> 00:46:16,720
bringing the fluid platforming of Super Meat
Boy to the genre. They literally even put

624
00:46:16,720 --> 00:46:20,900
Meatboy’s rotting corpse in the game, in
case you didn’t notice the inspiration.

625
00:46:20,900 --> 00:46:22,839
Thomas Mahler explains:

626
00:46:22,839 --> 00:46:30,920
We wanted to improve Metroidvanias by really
focusing on the platforming component because

627
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:36,390
honestly, if you look at your typical Metroidvania.
If you look at Symphony of the Night and Super

628
00:46:36,390 --> 00:46:41,119
Metroid, yes they do have platforming but
it’s very simple, right? It’s not on the

629
00:46:41,119 --> 00:46:42,650
level of Mario....

630
00:46:42,650 --> 00:46:46,839
So that’s where we wanted to improve things.
To me, it just made no sense that, hey if

631
00:46:46,839 --> 00:46:51,900
one of your core aspects, if one of the core
hooks of the game is platforming like jumping

632
00:46:51,900 --> 00:46:57,680
around these levels, why wouldn’t the levels
and the platforming component be as good as

633
00:46:57,680 --> 00:47:03,210
Mario? Like that should be the case. So that’s
where we took it.

634
00:47:03,210 --> 00:47:07,280
After the release of Hollow Knight, however,
Mahler and Moon Studios looked to push combat

635
00:47:07,280 --> 00:47:12,681
further as well, thus having both the best
combat and the best platforming in the Metroidvania

636
00:47:12,681 --> 00:47:18,150
genre. And to do that, they seemed to compare
themselves a lot to Hollow Knight:

637
00:47:18,150 --> 00:47:22,329
Then Team Cherry came in and did Hollow Knight
and they did a much more traditional thing,

638
00:47:22,329 --> 00:47:27,310
right? Or Axiom Verge for example also did
a much more traditional approach to Metroidvanias.

639
00:47:27,310 --> 00:47:34,700
And I think that’s fine, but in terms of
the combat system, we wanted to kind of like…

640
00:47:34,700 --> 00:47:39,359
I always like that competition and the challenge
and say. Okay you guys did that. Let’s see

641
00:47:39,359 --> 00:47:44,540
how you can follow up when we do this stuff.
You know, like that kind of thing.

642
00:47:44,540 --> 00:47:48,430
The combat itself in Blind Forest was much
more focused around the platforming, and then

643
00:47:48,430 --> 00:47:54,960
you have games like Hollow Knight coming out
which focused a lot more on just precise hits

644
00:47:54,960 --> 00:48:00,490
and so on which just wasn’t the focus for
Blind Forest and we thought “Hey, you know,

645
00:48:00,490 --> 00:48:05,680
we could do that as well, right?” And we
could really create this perfect package that

646
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:13,809
here’s what a metroidvania should look like
in 2019 and 2020.

647
00:48:13,809 --> 00:48:17,480
So it’s clear that Moon Studios was very
aware of Hollow Knight while making Will of

648
00:48:17,480 --> 00:48:23,170
the Wisps, and I think part of the whole “perfect
Metroidvania” mentality really just meant

649
00:48:23,170 --> 00:48:27,819
“better than Hollow Knight”. So does Mahler’s
feelings towards Hollow Knight, mixed with

650
00:48:27,819 --> 00:48:33,410
Moon Studios’ philosophy of perfection prove
Ori copied ideas from Hollow Knight. Well

651
00:48:33,410 --> 00:48:38,130
no, but I think it shows that Hollow Knight
likely had some influence over them as they

652
00:48:38,130 --> 00:48:39,510
made the game.

653
00:48:39,510 --> 00:48:43,390
But if we ignore the Hollow Knight stuff for
a minute, the basic philosophy of perfecting

654
00:48:43,390 --> 00:48:48,880
the Metroidvania genre is an interesting approach
from Moon Studios. It’s also very different

655
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:54,190
from what Team Cherry did. William Pellen
and Ari Gibson actively avoided even calling

656
00:48:54,190 --> 00:48:56,290
their game a Metroidvania at all.

657
00:48:56,290 --> 00:49:00,400
So when we were making the game, obviously
the blueprint for it was a lot of those games

658
00:49:00,400 --> 00:49:05,480
like Metroid and Castlevania, but we weren’t
super conscious of staying true to the genre

659
00:49:05,480 --> 00:49:10,880
or anything like that, you know? It was just
what we thought would be fun or what made

660
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:12,700
sense, what we wanted to make...

661
00:49:12,700 --> 00:49:17,340
In another interview, Leth confirms that they
consciously chose to avoid using the word

662
00:49:17,340 --> 00:49:18,990
Metroidvania:

663
00:49:18,990 --> 00:49:22,990
Team Cherry was the same way. They didn't
want to use the word Metroidvania either.

664
00:49:22,990 --> 00:49:28,330
They were calling it "action platformer" or
something like that.

665
00:49:28,330 --> 00:49:33,650
In fact, Team Cherry has even said that Hollow
Knight is actually most like Faxanadu:

666
00:49:33,650 --> 00:49:38,190
Everytime we say Faxanadu, which is probably
the one that it is most closely alined to,

667
00:49:38,190 --> 00:49:41,130
everyone just goes. “Ah what?”

668
00:49:41,130 --> 00:49:46,730
Faxanadu is another one of those early 2D
Metroidvania games from the 1980s, before

669
00:49:46,730 --> 00:49:51,860
Super Metroid truly defined the genre. Faxanadu
sticks out with its impressive atmosphere

670
00:49:51,860 --> 00:49:57,650
for an NES game and cohesive world design.
Faxanadu starts with a lone traveller arriving

671
00:49:57,650 --> 00:50:03,550
at a ruined kingdom in despair, with some
inhabitants under the curse of an evil force.

672
00:50:03,550 --> 00:50:07,859
This is very similar to Hollow Knight’s
general story, a lonely warrior arriving at

673
00:50:07,859 --> 00:50:11,109
a civilization wrought by an infection.

674
00:50:11,109 --> 00:50:14,960
So you have one developer working to push
the conventions of the genre to their limit

675
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:19,320
by crafting the best platforming and combat
mechanics of any Metroidvania game, using

676
00:50:19,320 --> 00:50:23,920
Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night as
references. And you have another developer

677
00:50:23,920 --> 00:50:28,319
that isn’t really worried about sticking
true to the conventions of the genre and instead

678
00:50:28,319 --> 00:50:32,680
taking inspiration from other old school open
world games.

679
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:36,460
Both Hollow Knight and Ori and the Will of
the Wisps have their own unique strengths,

680
00:50:36,460 --> 00:50:42,080
ideals and weaknesses that may stem from their
design philosophies. And these games do differ

681
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:46,550
quite a bit, mainly in their level design
and storytelling.

682
00:50:46,550 --> 00:50:50,790
Hollow Knight’s level design prioritizes
exploration, with lots of diverging paths

683
00:50:50,790 --> 00:50:55,510
and an insane amount of secret areas to explore.
You can beat the game without even seeing

684
00:50:55,510 --> 00:50:59,860
the majority of the content Team Cherry created.
And your path through the game will likely

685
00:50:59,860 --> 00:51:02,480
look very different from someone else's.

686
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:07,200
In contrast, pretty much every area in the
Ori games is entered through one intended

687
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:12,200
path. Because Moon Studio does this, it allows
them to carefully craft platforming challenges

688
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:16,619
around what abilities the player has obtained
so far. While there are some hidden areas

689
00:51:16,619 --> 00:51:20,980
here and there, you will be seeing most of
what each Ori game has to offer just by following

690
00:51:20,980 --> 00:51:22,680
the critical path.

691
00:51:22,680 --> 00:51:27,470
In terms of storytelling, Moon Studios uses
swelling orchestral music and the detailed

692
00:51:27,470 --> 00:51:31,840
character animations to convey the plot of
the game. All of this is done to achieve a

693
00:51:31,840 --> 00:51:35,890
more universally recognizable story that doesn’t
rely too heavily on dialogue.

694
00:51:35,890 --> 00:51:41,329
There's still a certain tone to Ori where
we try to tell our stories with as little

695
00:51:41,329 --> 00:51:46,720
dialogue as possible, because I want people
from India who don't necessarily speak English

696
00:51:46,720 --> 00:51:52,720
or something to get as much out of the games
as Americans and Europeans and so on. I want

697
00:51:52,720 --> 00:51:55,150
this to be a global thing.

698
00:51:55,150 --> 00:51:59,170
Hollow Knight, on the other hand, has tens
of thousands of words for the player to read

699
00:51:59,170 --> 00:52:05,460
and analyze, if they can even find those words
that is. And even then, the story isn’t

700
00:52:05,460 --> 00:52:09,680
exactly clear on a lot of the details. To
fully grasp Hollow Knight’s plot, you’re

701
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:14,290
going to need to go online and discuss it
with other people or watch YouTube videos

702
00:52:14,290 --> 00:52:19,180
about it by people who constantly remind you
to like the video and subscribe. God, I hate

703
00:52:19,180 --> 00:52:23,990
it when YouTubers ask you to like the video
and subscribe. It really kills the whole pacing

704
00:52:23,990 --> 00:52:27,650
of the video.

705
00:52:27,650 --> 00:52:33,020
So those are two very different approaches,
indeed. Ori is a much more guided experience.

706
00:52:33,020 --> 00:52:36,890
Whereas Hollow Knight is much more open ended.
And I think this is part of why the Hollow

707
00:52:36,890 --> 00:52:41,640
Knight fandom is so big compared to other
great indie titles. People have to talk to

708
00:52:41,640 --> 00:52:47,200
one another online to find out about that
one hidden boss in Deepnest, or that one segment

709
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:50,911
where the game turns into Super Meat Boy,
or to even figure out what the hell is even

710
00:52:50,911 --> 00:52:54,660
happening in half the cutscenes of the game.
But does Hollow Knight’s approach make it

711
00:52:54,660 --> 00:53:00,200
a better Metroidvania? Can we even know what
a perfect Metroidvania looks like?

712
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:04,730
Personally, and I might be a little biased
here, Hollow Knight better encompasses what

713
00:53:04,730 --> 00:53:10,940
I value most in Metroidvanias. Why is it that
so many gamers connect Dark Souls with the

714
00:53:10,940 --> 00:53:14,829
Metroidvania genre? It’s because Dark Souls
nails the biggest part of what I think people

715
00:53:14,829 --> 00:53:19,700
like about Metroidvanias: the interconnected
world. It doesn’t matter that there aren’t

716
00:53:19,700 --> 00:53:24,740
movement upgrades in Dark Souls. It’s still
satisfying to explore the kingdom of Lordran.

717
00:53:24,740 --> 00:53:28,750
And I think Team Cherry kinda stumbled into
the realization that the strict upgrade progression

718
00:53:28,750 --> 00:53:33,920
system that’s found in games like Castlevania
and Metroid isn’t necessary. When making

719
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:38,030
their game, they weren’t afraid to strip
Hollow Knight of its rigid Metroidvania structure

720
00:53:38,030 --> 00:53:41,339
to create a more freeform experience:

721
00:53:41,339 --> 00:53:44,320
The basic outline of the game at the start,
especially because it was really small, was

722
00:53:44,320 --> 00:53:48,480
a much more rigid kind of traditional “this
power up first then this power up then this

723
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:53,810
power up” and you follow that through the
game. As the game expanded and as we kept

724
00:53:53,810 --> 00:53:57,849
working on it, we kept finding interesting
connections between areas that didn't exist,

725
00:53:57,849 --> 00:54:03,040
so we kinda chipped away at the floor or the
ceiling to allow you to move between areas

726
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:04,290
a little more freely.

727
00:54:04,290 --> 00:54:09,000
While I think Hollow Knight better captures
what it is I like about Metroidvanias, I wouldn’t

728
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:13,250
say Hollow Knight is a better Metroidvania
than Ori. Both games are trying to do their

729
00:54:13,250 --> 00:54:17,150
own thing within the genre, and they both
do them so well it’s not really reasonable

730
00:54:17,150 --> 00:54:22,010
to even compare them. Oddly enough, Thomas
Mahler has even said this too:

731
00:54:22,010 --> 00:54:25,970
I think Hollow Knight and Ori honestly both
have their own thing going on, I don't really

732
00:54:25,970 --> 00:54:30,540
see all that much overlap apart from them
being both Metroidvanias... It's like comparing

733
00:54:30,540 --> 00:54:36,069
Mario and Sonic to me - Sure, both are platformers,
but that's where the similarities end. I'm

734
00:54:36,069 --> 00:54:39,220
just glad we're seeing more amazing Metroidvanias
finally again…

735
00:54:39,220 --> 00:54:43,840
So while Mahler does talk a lot about wanting
to perfect the genre, he still understands

736
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:48,770
that there is room for variety within that
genre, at least sometimes. Thomas Mahler is

737
00:54:48,770 --> 00:54:54,790
a very complex man, in case you couldn’t
tell. He’s like an onion. He’s got layers.

738
00:54:54,790 --> 00:54:59,610
The whole notion of figuring out what constitutes
a good or perfect Metroidvania is a bit silly

739
00:54:59,610 --> 00:55:05,010
to me. We would need to set up a rubric and
strictly define all the components of a Metroidvania

740
00:55:05,010 --> 00:55:10,440
and methods for evaluating those components.
And you probably could do that, at least to

741
00:55:10,440 --> 00:55:15,130
some degree. But this system would be worthless
because a lot of what makes new Metroidvanias

742
00:55:15,130 --> 00:55:19,849
interesting and worth playing is that they
mix the Metroidvania genre with something

743
00:55:19,849 --> 00:55:24,359
new. And a lot of times, when people make
these mental checklists in their head about

744
00:55:24,359 --> 00:55:29,660
what makes a perfect Metroidvania, they use
older games as reference, like Super Metroid

745
00:55:29,660 --> 00:55:33,960
and Symphony of the Night. But there’s no
guarantee that the specific mechanics and

746
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:38,589
design choices that worked well in those games
are going to work well in other games. Would

747
00:55:38,589 --> 00:55:44,069
the pinball Metroidvania Yoku’s Island Express
be better if it had the Shine Spark? Or Form

748
00:55:44,069 --> 00:55:45,550
of Mist?

749
00:55:45,550 --> 00:55:49,130
While it’s certainly possible to compare
and contrast games and argue which ones did

750
00:55:49,130 --> 00:55:53,190
certain mechanics better, it’s important
to remember that each game is unique and we

751
00:55:53,190 --> 00:55:57,589
should judge them based on how well they execute
their own ideas and not pigeonhole them with

752
00:55:57,589 --> 00:56:00,520
comparisons to 20 year old games.

753
00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:05,309
Anyway, now that I’m done talking about
how we shouldn't compare games all the time,

754
00:56:05,309 --> 00:56:11,940
let’s compare these games.

755
00:56:11,940 --> 00:56:15,480
Earlier in the video, I mentioned that a lot
of Hollow Knight’s ideas that Gleamlight

756
00:56:15,480 --> 00:56:20,550
apparently stole weren’t all that original
in the first place. Some of that applies here

757
00:56:20,550 --> 00:56:25,349
as well, but luckily Moon Studios has provided
us with more info on Will of the Wisps’

758
00:56:25,349 --> 00:56:29,869
development than DICO ever did. So let’s
start off the comparisons with the biggest

759
00:56:29,869 --> 00:56:33,430
new addition to Will of the Wisps: combat.

760
00:56:33,430 --> 00:56:37,880
If we look back to Ori and the Blind Forest,
one of the largest and most common criticisms

761
00:56:37,880 --> 00:56:40,609
of that game was the combat.

762
00:56:40,609 --> 00:56:44,170
As fun as exploration is, combat is a little
more uneven.

763
00:56:44,170 --> 00:56:46,339
Combat isn't one of Ori's strengths.

764
00:56:46,339 --> 00:56:50,059
Basically the combat in Blind Forest consisted
of standing near an enemy and button mashing

765
00:56:50,059 --> 00:56:55,190
a homing energy attack until they died. So
about as interactive as watching YouTube ads.

766
00:56:55,190 --> 00:56:59,670
A big part of Will of the Wisps' reason for
even existing is to improve upon the combat

767
00:56:59,670 --> 00:57:01,150
from Blind Forest.

768
00:57:01,150 --> 00:57:06,869
When we started really working on the game
we immediately looked at all the feedback

769
00:57:06,869 --> 00:57:11,240
that people gave us. And one of the big things
was the combat system. We completely refined

770
00:57:11,240 --> 00:57:15,450
the combat system and made it crazy in terms
of what you've ever seen in a Metroidvania.

771
00:57:15,450 --> 00:57:20,309
That's the first big thing about Ori 2 is
that we really wanted to take the combat and

772
00:57:20,309 --> 00:57:24,460
completely revamp it. Make it absolutely awesome
in a way that we believe maybe wasn't done

773
00:57:24,460 --> 00:57:25,819
in a Metroidvania before.

774
00:57:25,819 --> 00:57:29,520
When people point out the similarities between
Hollow Knight and Ori’s combat, they usually

775
00:57:29,520 --> 00:57:34,150
just point out that the Knight’s nail and
Ori’s Shard Sword are similar. Or they are

776
00:57:34,150 --> 00:57:39,650
just pointing out that Will of the Wisps has
more combat now. But in reality, Will of the

777
00:57:39,650 --> 00:57:44,160
Wisps probably would have had more refined
combat regardless of if Hollow Knight existed,

778
00:57:44,160 --> 00:57:47,390
since combat was the weakest aspect of Blind
Forest.

779
00:57:47,390 --> 00:57:52,140
As it turns out, a prototype version of the
sword weapon in Will of the Wisps was created

780
00:57:52,140 --> 00:57:56,030
during the development of Blind Forest. According
to Korol:

781
00:57:56,030 --> 00:58:00,300
We had a working version of sword fighting
in Blind Forest, but it was very hard to make

782
00:58:00,300 --> 00:58:04,450
it work. It was such a big game and we needed
to ship a game at some point.

783
00:58:04,450 --> 00:58:08,740
Due to Moon Studios’ small size and the
complexity of combat systems in general, Blind

784
00:58:08,740 --> 00:58:13,870
Forest ended up letting combat take a backseat
so the developers could focus on platforming.

785
00:58:13,870 --> 00:58:17,990
For the sequel, Moon Studios wanted to create
a combat system unlike what has been done

786
00:58:17,990 --> 00:58:20,210
in a Metroidvania before.

787
00:58:20,210 --> 00:58:24,329
We saw earlier that Thomas Mahler looked at
Hollow Knight and wanted to one-up what Team

788
00:58:24,329 --> 00:58:28,161
Cherry did with that game’s combat, while
also saying that he doesn’t really like

789
00:58:28,161 --> 00:58:32,410
Hollow Knight’s simplistic combat system.
So it seems like Moon Studios looked at Hollow

790
00:58:32,410 --> 00:58:36,751
Knight’s combat just so they could try and
up the ante with Will of the Wisps. Apparently

791
00:58:36,751 --> 00:58:42,190
they even reached out to one of the developers
on Killer Instinct, Ken Lobb, to discuss designing

792
00:58:42,190 --> 00:58:47,540
combat for Ori. And looking at the final products,
the combat system between Ori and Hollow Knight

793
00:58:47,540 --> 00:58:49,600
are noticeably different.

794
00:58:49,600 --> 00:58:54,089
According to Korol and Mahler, the combat
system for Ori drew more from Dark Souls and

795
00:58:54,089 --> 00:58:59,490
Symphony of the Night as opposed to Hollow
Knight. Mahler said in a ResetEra post:

796
00:58:59,490 --> 00:59:03,770
The Melee stuff is inspired by Symphony of
the Night and Dark Souls, mostly, those are

797
00:59:03,770 --> 00:59:08,530
games we looked at when it came to how to
make the combat feel satisfying and crunchy…

798
00:59:08,530 --> 00:59:11,089
Korol also mentioned Dark Souls in another
interview:

799
00:59:11,089 --> 00:59:15,550
We were almost inspired by games like Dark
Souls... we're really creating really interesting

800
00:59:15,550 --> 00:59:17,050
dances with the enemies…

801
00:59:17,050 --> 00:59:20,440
Dark Souls and Symphony of the Night differ
from Hollow Knight in that you can equip a

802
00:59:20,440 --> 00:59:26,030
wide variety of weapons aside from just a
sword. You can use shields, spears, rods,

803
00:59:26,030 --> 00:59:32,040
your goddamn fists, it’s really up to you.
In Hollow Knight, all you ever get is the

804
00:59:32,040 --> 00:59:36,569
nail. There are still different playstyles
thanks to charms and spells, but you’ll

805
00:59:36,569 --> 00:59:41,020
be whacking off with this thing from the very
start to the very end.

806
00:59:41,020 --> 00:59:45,369
In Will of the Wisps, Ori has a variety of
skills, which allow it to use energy to create

807
00:59:45,369 --> 00:59:53,589
a sword, a bow, a giant hammer, a giant spear,
a shuriken/boomerang thing, and most devastating

808
00:59:53,589 --> 00:59:59,260
of all, a feather. These attacks, and a few
more, can be quickly set to face buttons,

809
00:59:59,260 --> 01:00:02,580
allowing the player to change weapons on the
fly.

810
01:00:02,580 --> 01:00:06,460
Another major difference with Ori’s combat
is how attacks actually happen when you press

811
01:00:06,460 --> 01:00:11,339
the button. In Hollow Knight, you press a
button and the Knight swings its sword. It’s

812
01:00:11,339 --> 01:00:15,780
very straightforward. Mahler didn’t like
how simplistic this was, saying:

813
01:00:15,780 --> 01:00:20,200
We really wanted to take it to that level
where it’s like, ‘No, it’s actually

814
01:00:20,200 --> 01:00:24,309
an animation-based combat system.’ My idea
for Ori is always that you have to feel like

815
01:00:24,309 --> 01:00:26,720
a super fucking cool ninja.

816
01:00:26,720 --> 01:00:30,859
That being said, I think Hollow Knight still
gets better use of its combat. It may not

817
01:00:30,859 --> 01:00:35,310
be as complex, but the game gets a lot of
depth out of it. The combat in Will of the

818
01:00:35,310 --> 01:00:39,120
Wisps is certainly an improvement from Blind
Forest, but it’s still not as satisfying

819
01:00:39,120 --> 01:00:42,410
or enjoyable to me as the platforming.

820
01:00:42,410 --> 01:00:46,510
The YouTube channel Ingeniousclown Gaming
did a really thoughtful critique of Ori and

821
01:00:46,510 --> 01:00:51,500
the Will of the Wisps. And I pretty much 100%
agree with his critique on Ori’s combat:

822
01:00:51,500 --> 01:00:56,430
Granted, Ori's combat is significantly more
complex than what Hollow Knight offers, but

823
01:00:56,430 --> 01:01:01,730
the inspiration can be seen regardless. Hollow
Knight had over 40 bosses to explore the game's

824
01:01:01,730 --> 01:01:05,620
combat with, while Ori has a measly six.

825
01:01:05,620 --> 01:01:09,089
But keep in mind, I’m definitely biased
here. I’ve played through Hollow Knight’s

826
01:01:09,089 --> 01:01:13,630
boss rush mode several times. If I didn’t
think Hollow Knight’s combat was fantastic,

827
01:01:13,630 --> 01:01:17,020
then I’d be an absolute lunatic for doing
this. And I haven’t put anywhere near as

828
01:01:17,020 --> 01:01:19,920
much time into fighting the bosses in Ori.

829
01:01:19,920 --> 01:01:24,460
So did Ori copy Hollow Knight’s combat?
Well, they were aware of Hollow Knight, and

830
01:01:24,460 --> 01:01:28,210
they seemed to take it as a challenge of sorts
to push their combat further than what Team

831
01:01:28,210 --> 01:01:33,859
Cherry did. But in reality, Moon Studios was
always going to revamp the combat system because

832
01:01:33,859 --> 01:01:38,319
it was Blind Forest’s biggest stumbling
point. And the combat system they did implement

833
01:01:38,319 --> 01:01:42,590
into the game is very different from Hollow
Knight’s in a number of ways.

834
01:01:42,590 --> 01:01:49,330
So… yes?... but actually no.

835
01:01:49,330 --> 01:01:54,250
The healing system is another comparison I’ve
seen thrown around. In Blind Forest, Ori could

836
01:01:54,250 --> 01:01:58,440
heal either by finding health drops in the
world, or by unlocking an ability that healed

837
01:01:58,440 --> 01:02:03,230
Ori whenever it created a save point. In Will
of the Wisps, Moon Studios wanted to use the

838
01:02:03,230 --> 01:02:08,461
face buttons for equipping skills, leaving
no place to put the manual save ability. Due

839
01:02:08,461 --> 01:02:13,020
to this, they decided to replace that feature
with an autosave system, and the healing ability

840
01:02:13,020 --> 01:02:15,970
was turned into one of the equippable skills.

841
01:02:15,970 --> 01:02:20,940
On the face of it, expending a resource in
order to heal isn’t all that unique, which

842
01:02:20,940 --> 01:02:24,570
is pretty much what Mahler said when people
brought this up as being similar to Hollow

843
01:02:24,570 --> 01:02:28,799
Knight. But it’s the way this healing plays
out during gameplay that I think makes it

844
01:02:28,799 --> 01:02:33,839
feel similar to some people. Healing can now
be performed in the middle of combat, and

845
01:02:33,839 --> 01:02:38,430
requires Ori to stand still and avoid taking
damage for a short period of time. This is

846
01:02:38,430 --> 01:02:44,490
very similar to Hollow Knight. On the other
hand, it’s also very similar to Dark Souls.

847
01:02:44,490 --> 01:02:48,700
Both Team Cherry and Moon Studios have cited
Dark Souls as inspiration for their games.

848
01:02:48,700 --> 01:02:53,660
And we know that Moon Studios wanted to replicate
the “interesting dances” the player has

849
01:02:53,660 --> 01:02:58,030
with enemies in Dark Souls. Part of that dance
involves finding the right time in between

850
01:02:58,030 --> 01:03:02,790
enemy attacks to use an Estus Flask to heal.
And I think it’s reasonable to say that

851
01:03:02,790 --> 01:03:06,730
Hollow Knight’s focus mechanic took cues
from the Soulsborne series in this regard

852
01:03:06,730 --> 01:03:08,079
as well.

853
01:03:08,079 --> 01:03:11,611
So did Ori construct their healing spell to
act more like Hollow Knight’s because they

854
01:03:11,611 --> 01:03:16,109
wanted to replicate Hollow Knight’s gameplay,
or did they go back to Hollow Knight’s source,

855
01:03:16,109 --> 01:03:21,130
Dark Souls, and replicate that? Did Ori copy
Hollow Knight’s idea to copy Dark Souls?

856
01:03:21,130 --> 01:03:25,200
Or did Ori just copy Dark Souls? It’s at
this point where even trying to figure out

857
01:03:25,200 --> 01:03:30,080
where an idea came from or how it migrated
to other games becomes pointless to even talk

858
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:35,559
about. It’s like jumping. Does every game
draw direct influence from Donkey Kong because

859
01:03:35,559 --> 01:03:38,140
it popularized the jumping mechanic?

860
01:03:38,140 --> 01:03:43,940
I think the healing spell change in Will of
the Wisps ties into Moon Studios’ more combat-focused

861
01:03:43,940 --> 01:03:48,599
design philosophy, and might just be an extension
of Dark Souls’ influence over them. Is it

862
01:03:48,599 --> 01:03:53,420
possible Hollow Knight influenced them in
some regard as well? Maybe, but leaving Dark

863
01:03:53,420 --> 01:03:56,520
Souls out of the equation and saying they
are just copying Hollow Knight leaves a lot

864
01:03:56,520 --> 01:04:01,380
of details out of the picture. And that goes
for the entire combat system in general. Both

865
01:04:01,380 --> 01:04:06,099
Ori and Hollow Knight draw from that series,
and that might be a big part of why the combat

866
01:04:06,099 --> 01:04:10,970
in these games “feels similar” to a lot
of players, when in reality, they are quite

867
01:04:10,970 --> 01:04:15,380
different.

868
01:04:15,380 --> 01:04:19,720
The concept of Metroidvania games using RPG
elements has been around at least since Symphony

869
01:04:19,720 --> 01:04:24,431
of the Night, which boasted an experience
system as well as equipment management. And

870
01:04:24,431 --> 01:04:29,160
both Moon Studios and Team Cherry also put
RPG elements into their games.

871
01:04:29,160 --> 01:04:33,400
Ori and the Blind Forest features an ability
tree, which allows Ori to gain different abilities

872
01:04:33,400 --> 01:04:38,770
and perks, such as breathing underwater, better
resource drop, showing things on the map,

873
01:04:38,770 --> 01:04:44,130
and making attacks more powerful. The tree
has three separate, linear branches, so a

874
01:04:44,130 --> 01:04:49,280
lot of the later power ups are locked behind
a bunch you might not even want. Korol explains

875
01:04:49,280 --> 01:04:50,280
this issue:

876
01:04:50,280 --> 01:04:54,720
With Ori 1 we kinda had a tree system, so
if you wanted to get an upgrade you gotta

877
01:04:54,720 --> 01:04:58,130
get all the upgrades before it on a certain
path so it kinda locks you in.

878
01:04:58,130 --> 01:05:02,930
The shard system introduced in the sequel
offers a lot more flexibility. On top of not

879
01:05:02,930 --> 01:05:07,020
having to spend resources on abilities you
don’t want, the player can also switch out

880
01:05:07,020 --> 01:05:11,180
shards depending on what they are struggling
with currently in the game. It’s also very

881
01:05:11,180 --> 01:05:15,860
similar to Hollow Knight’s charm system,
with only a few minor differences. Each shard

882
01:05:15,860 --> 01:05:20,500
in Ori is worth exactly one shard slot, whereas
notches in Hollow Knight have different costs

883
01:05:20,500 --> 01:05:25,990
depending on how powerful the charm is. Shards
can be upgraded to become more powerful, which

884
01:05:25,990 --> 01:05:30,600
was a planned idea for Hollow Knight’s Godmaster
update, but was ultimately cut.

885
01:05:30,600 --> 01:05:35,530
Both Moon Studios and Team Cherry cite different
RPGs for their systems. Team Cherry says they

886
01:05:35,530 --> 01:05:40,359
looked at the badge system from Paper Mario.
In that game, you had Badge Points which could

887
01:05:40,359 --> 01:05:45,490
be spent to equip badges, with some badges
having different cost requirements, very similar

888
01:05:45,490 --> 01:05:50,240
to what we see in Hollow Knight. The developers
at Moon Studios, on the other hand, originally

889
01:05:50,240 --> 01:05:55,600
based their shard system on the Materia system
in Final Fantasy VII. In that game, weapons

890
01:05:55,600 --> 01:06:00,799
and armor have a certain number of Materia
slots. If you equip a Materia to a character,

891
01:06:00,799 --> 01:06:06,030
they gain the Materia’s power, and the Materia
itself can be leveled up by gaining AP points

892
01:06:06,030 --> 01:06:07,650
through combat.

893
01:06:07,650 --> 01:06:12,200
According to Mahler, the shard system in Ori
was going to work a lot more similarly to

894
01:06:12,200 --> 01:06:13,220
that, saying:

895
01:06:13,220 --> 01:06:17,260
… at some point in the game we literally
had slots in all the skills that you inserted

896
01:06:17,260 --> 01:06:21,900
shards into - that became too cumbersome,
so we turned it into a global system.

897
01:06:21,900 --> 01:06:24,180
Gennadiy Korol echoed this inspiration, saying:

898
01:06:24,180 --> 01:06:28,440
We looked at the materia system from Final
Fantasy and the shard modifier system where

899
01:06:28,440 --> 01:06:31,849
you can customize your character and have
more choice…

900
01:06:31,849 --> 01:06:37,059
Korol also mentioned that the shard system
existed in prototype form since early 2015,

901
01:06:37,059 --> 01:06:41,080
long before Team Cherry ever showed off Hollow
Knight’s charm mechanic.

902
01:06:41,080 --> 01:06:46,270
The ability to level up shards is probably
a remnant from this original idea. So while

903
01:06:46,270 --> 01:06:50,869
the final implementation of the shard system
looks a lot like Hollow Knight’s, Moon Studios

904
01:06:50,869 --> 01:06:58,570
didn’t just rip that system straight out
of that game and cram it in Will of the Wisps.

905
01:06:58,570 --> 01:07:02,670
Ori and the Will of the Wisps features a much
larger cast than the first game. And some

906
01:07:02,670 --> 01:07:06,420
people have compared this to Hollow Knight’s
large cast of characters. But there’s a

907
01:07:06,420 --> 01:07:10,460
good reason why Ori and the Blind Forest didn’t
have many characters: budget.

908
01:07:10,460 --> 01:07:15,980
Ori and the Blind Forest had a very unique
pipeline for the creation of its characters.

909
01:07:15,980 --> 01:07:20,481
First the developers would create and rig
a 3D model of the character. But this 3D model

910
01:07:20,481 --> 01:07:25,450
wasn’t actually used in game. Instead the
3D model was then rendered into individual

911
01:07:25,450 --> 01:07:31,180
2D sprites. These 2D sprites were then modified
to add in details like motion blur and depth

912
01:07:31,180 --> 01:07:35,280
of field effects. Then a whole bunch of ingame
effects are used to make the sprite match

913
01:07:35,280 --> 01:07:39,920
the surrounding lighting. This was done for
all the characters, including the gigantic

914
01:07:39,920 --> 01:07:45,100
owl Kuro. So when you look at Ori in Blind
Forest, you are actually looking at a 3D model

915
01:07:45,100 --> 01:07:50,110
that has been rendered as a bunch of 2D sprites.
It’s an interesting process, and if you

916
01:07:50,110 --> 01:07:54,079
want to learn more about how it was done then
I’d recommend this GDC talk by animator

917
01:07:54,079 --> 01:07:55,990
James Benson.

918
01:07:55,990 --> 01:08:00,370
In Hollow Knight, Ari animated each character
in Photoshop… and yeah, that was pretty

919
01:08:00,370 --> 01:08:01,740
much it.

920
01:08:01,740 --> 01:08:05,910
Moon Studios’ involved process for creating
characters kept them from creating more than

921
01:08:05,910 --> 01:08:10,589
just the barebones cast we see in Blind Forest.
But with the larger team and budget for Will

922
01:08:10,589 --> 01:08:15,079
of the Wisps, the developers were able to
add in way more characters for Ori to interact

923
01:08:15,079 --> 01:08:19,940
with. They also just ended up using 3D models
as well. Mahler says the inspiration for this

924
01:08:19,940 --> 01:08:25,089
larger cast comes from A Link to the Past,
which had way more NPCs than the first Zelda

925
01:08:25,089 --> 01:08:29,199
game. And honestly, I think saying Will of
the Wisps copied Hollow Knight just by the

926
01:08:29,199 --> 01:08:34,130
virtue of having more NPCs is pretty dumb.
The same thing happened with Hollow Knight

927
01:08:34,130 --> 01:08:38,779
and Dark Souls, with people saying Hollow
Knight’s system of recurring NPCs was taken

928
01:08:38,779 --> 01:08:40,130
from Dark Souls.

929
01:08:40,130 --> 01:08:44,689
However, there is one specific NPC that a
lot of people hone in on when comparing the

930
01:08:44,689 --> 01:08:50,650
two games: Lupo. Lupo is a cartographer who
shows up all over the world, selling maps

931
01:08:50,650 --> 01:08:54,949
of each area. This function is similar to
that of Cornifer.

932
01:08:54,949 --> 01:08:59,359
When people on ResetEra brought up the comparisons
between Lupo and Cornifer, Mahler mentioned

933
01:08:59,359 --> 01:09:03,469
that the Castlevania games have merchants
who sell maps, so Hollow Knight didn’t invent

934
01:09:03,469 --> 01:09:08,659
the concept. And that’s true. In Symphony
of the Night, Alucard can purchase a castle

935
01:09:08,659 --> 01:09:12,929
map from the Master Librarian, among many
other things. But that’s not really the

936
01:09:12,929 --> 01:09:19,489
same as Cornifer and Lupo. The Castlevania
NPCs are shopkeepers, not cartographers. The

937
01:09:19,489 --> 01:09:24,679
concept of a cartographer NPC wasn’t present
in those games, which does make Cornifer more

938
01:09:24,679 --> 01:09:25,809
unique.

939
01:09:25,809 --> 01:09:31,269
That being said, the idea of a map making
cartographer NPC seems pretty logical for

940
01:09:31,269 --> 01:09:35,509
a Metroidvania. Honestly, it’s weird that
Hollow Knight’s the first well known example

941
01:09:35,509 --> 01:09:41,400
of one. And there are memorable cartographer
NPCs outside of the Metroidvania genre. It’s

942
01:09:41,400 --> 01:09:43,339
really not that unique of an idea.

943
01:09:43,339 --> 01:09:47,940
Regardless, Lupo’s implementation is nothing
compared to Cornifer’s. In Hollow Knight,

944
01:09:47,940 --> 01:09:52,089
you need to find Cornifer to even get a map.
You also have to buy the quill to update your

945
01:09:52,089 --> 01:09:56,869
map, which only happens when you sit at a
bench. And you have to buy and equip the Wayward

946
01:09:56,869 --> 01:09:59,639
Compass to even see where you are on the map.

947
01:09:59,639 --> 01:10:04,760
In Ori, your map still fills in without talking
to Lupo, but his maps help reveal large chunks

948
01:10:04,760 --> 01:10:09,909
of each area. And the player icon and map
updating all happens automatically. It’s

949
01:10:09,909 --> 01:10:14,820
way less involved, which makes sense because
Ori is less about exploring a large interconnected

950
01:10:14,820 --> 01:10:20,090
world, and more about moving through areas
sequentially. Also Lupo doesn’t have a smoking

951
01:10:20,090 --> 01:10:24,289
hot trophy wife. So that’s a pretty big
game changing difference.

952
01:10:24,289 --> 01:10:29,150
On top of that, there are other parallels
we can draw between NPCs. Tokk is a wandering

953
01:10:29,150 --> 01:10:34,729
traveller who drops random bits of lore and
advice, similar to Quirrel. Opher teaches

954
01:10:34,729 --> 01:10:40,050
new attacks, similar to the Nailmasters. At
the end of the day, there’s only so many

955
01:10:40,050 --> 01:10:44,429
different archetypes of characters you can
make that would be relevant to a Metroidvania

956
01:10:44,429 --> 01:10:49,900
game. And Cornifer and Lupo just happen to
overlap the most.

957
01:10:49,900 --> 01:10:57,020
Okay, this one is pretty damning. Did Moon
Studios really think people wouldn’t notice

958
01:10:57,020 --> 01:11:02,349
the fact that both Will of the Wisps and Hollow
Knight both had spiders in them? Thomas Mahler

959
01:11:02,349 --> 01:11:07,739
has never commented on this blatant rip-off,
and honestly, I don’t blame him. It’s

960
01:11:07,739 --> 01:11:11,059
undeniable that they stole this idea from
Team Cherry.

961
01:11:11,059 --> 01:11:16,159
But it goes a bit deeper than that. As it
turns out, before Hollow Knight popularized

962
01:11:16,159 --> 01:11:21,800
the concept of putting spiders in games, there
was another game to do it. A game that was

963
01:11:21,800 --> 01:11:35,209
truly ahead of its time.

964
01:11:35,209 --> 01:11:39,829
Another minor comparison people make is that
one of the spirit shards Ori can obtain is

965
01:11:39,829 --> 01:11:45,671
called “Thorn”, which is obviously a rip-off
of Thorns of Agony from Hollow Knight. Except

966
01:11:45,671 --> 01:11:50,579
the concept of thorns dealing damage like
this has shown up in plenty of games before,

967
01:11:50,579 --> 01:11:55,630
such as Diablo 2 and FortressCraft.

968
01:11:55,630 --> 01:12:00,400
Those are the main notable comparisons I have
seen floating around online. Hopefully you

969
01:12:00,400 --> 01:12:05,159
can see that on an individual level, these
similarities aren’t that deep and often

970
01:12:05,159 --> 01:12:11,329
have alternative explanations. A combination
of drawing from similar sources and pure coincidence

971
01:12:11,329 --> 01:12:15,949
can explain a great deal of Hollow Knight
and Ori’s overlapping features. All that

972
01:12:15,949 --> 01:12:20,010
being said, when you take a step back and
look at how Ori incorporated these elements

973
01:12:20,010 --> 01:12:25,869
together, what elements they chose to include,
and how they differentiate it from Blind Forest,

974
01:12:25,869 --> 01:12:30,389
the final product does end up barring some
resemblance to Hollow Knight. It’s the totality

975
01:12:30,389 --> 01:12:34,469
of these baseline similarities that seems
to be driving the claims here.

976
01:12:34,469 --> 01:12:38,210
And from looking at the developers’ claims
about wanting to “perfect” the Metroidvania

977
01:12:38,210 --> 01:12:43,559
genre, it’s possible that Moon Studios was
trying to “out-Hollow-Knight” Hollow Knight

978
01:12:43,559 --> 01:12:48,510
in some way, and this lead to a game that
feels like Hollow Knight to a lot of people,

979
01:12:48,510 --> 01:12:51,889
even if when put under a microscope, those
similarities disappear.

980
01:12:51,889 --> 01:12:56,640
That’s why I prefer to say Hollow Knight
influenced Will of the Wisps, especially in

981
01:12:56,640 --> 01:13:01,030
terms of combat. I think while the combat
in Will of the Wisps is very different from

982
01:13:01,030 --> 01:13:04,669
the combat in Hollow Knight, the developers
still looked at Hollow Knight as a reference

983
01:13:04,669 --> 01:13:08,900
for them to compare themselves against. So
it would sort of be like how they referenced

984
01:13:08,900 --> 01:13:13,909
the platforming of Super Metroid and Castlevania
as something they wanted to improve on. Even

985
01:13:13,909 --> 01:13:18,639
if the final product isn’t much like the
reference, the reference is still there and

986
01:13:18,639 --> 01:13:20,580
still visible to a lot of people.

987
01:13:20,580 --> 01:13:24,659
I personally think Moon Studios should have
acknowledged Hollow Knight’s influence over

988
01:13:24,659 --> 01:13:29,289
Will of the Wisps’ development once everyone
started making the comparisons. They seemed

989
01:13:29,289 --> 01:13:34,479
to acknowledge some influence before launch,
but have downplayed it since then. Although

990
01:13:34,479 --> 01:13:39,760
I can understand why they did so. Team Cherry
did something very similar with Dark Souls.

991
01:13:39,760 --> 01:13:44,349
They did take some inspiration from Dark Souls,
that’s undeniable, but they preferred to

992
01:13:44,349 --> 01:13:48,570
play that down in interviews because a lot
of the connections people were making to Dark

993
01:13:48,570 --> 01:13:51,300
Souls weren’t intentional on Team Cherry’s
part.

994
01:13:51,300 --> 01:13:56,030
That being said, Team Cherry never contradicted
themselves on if they ever played Dark Souls,

995
01:13:56,030 --> 01:14:00,790
and they’ve never compared the sales figures
of their game to that of FromSoftware’s.

996
01:14:00,790 --> 01:14:02,949
And that does set them apart from Mahler.

997
01:14:02,949 --> 01:14:07,959
So to sum this all up, Hollow Knight certainly
had a vague influence over the development

998
01:14:07,959 --> 01:14:13,039
of Will of the Wisps, but I think people overstate
how much Moon Studios directly copied Hollow

999
01:14:13,039 --> 01:14:17,880
Knight. I think the wise people over at Honest
Game Trailers said it best:

1000
01:14:17,880 --> 01:14:24,079
Where they took a glance at Hollow Knight
and said “I guess we could do that.”

1001
01:14:24,079 --> 01:14:29,760
There’s a strange irony to all of this.
It’s pretty clear that Thomas Mahler doesn’t

1002
01:14:29,760 --> 01:14:34,119
like Hollow Knight. But at the same time he
seems to have set out to create a game that

1003
01:14:34,119 --> 01:14:38,500
could surpass Hollow Knight in the public
eye and become the pinnacle of the Metroidvania

1004
01:14:38,500 --> 01:14:43,309
genre. But in attempting to do so, he created
a game that people just compare to Hollow

1005
01:14:43,309 --> 01:14:47,550
Knight anyway. Even if Mahler didn’t intend
his game to look like Hollow Knight, the pieces

1006
01:14:47,550 --> 01:14:52,480
fell together to make a game that was arguably
much better than Ori and the Blind Forest,

1007
01:14:52,480 --> 01:14:57,559
but also seemed more like Hollow Knight. It’s
sort of like a greek tragedy, like Oedipus

1008
01:14:57,559 --> 01:14:59,949
Rex just without the eye gouging.

1009
01:14:59,949 --> 01:15:03,710
And I should say, while I have scrutinized
Thomas Mahler’s words quite a bit in this

1010
01:15:03,710 --> 01:15:09,420
video, I still respect him. He’s clearly
talented and has a strong creative vision.

1011
01:15:09,420 --> 01:15:14,179
The beauty and design of the Ori games are
strong testaments to that. And he seems content

1012
01:15:14,179 --> 01:15:18,519
to take heat for what he says on the internet.
When he posted his controversial thread calling

1013
01:15:18,519 --> 01:15:22,650
other game developers snake oil salesmen,
Mahler said the following:

1014
01:15:22,650 --> 01:15:27,789
Trust me, me talking openly about games and
sharing opinions and such has gotten me into

1015
01:15:27,789 --> 01:15:32,520
quite a bit of trouble before, I'm very aware
of that :D I just still like the discourse

1016
01:15:32,520 --> 01:15:36,959
that happens and when I was younger, I loved
when actual developers jumped into public

1017
01:15:36,959 --> 01:15:41,499
forums to explain this or that. It's great
when the discourse happens from both sides,

1018
01:15:41,499 --> 01:15:43,459
at least I think so.

1019
01:15:43,459 --> 01:15:47,380
My goal with this video isn’t to make you
hate anyone at Moon Studios or think Thomas

1020
01:15:47,380 --> 01:15:52,229
Mahler is a bad person, but to highlight how
complicated talking about inspiration and

1021
01:15:52,229 --> 01:15:56,959
influence in the creation of any work of art
can be. There’s a lot more going on behind

1022
01:15:56,959 --> 01:16:02,010
a game than people usually realize just watching
the trailer or playing the game.

1023
01:16:02,010 --> 01:16:06,729
Also Thomas Mahler isn’t the only one working
at Moon Studios. Dozens of people have worked

1024
01:16:06,729 --> 01:16:12,280
on these games, each bringing their own creative
ideas, influences and skills to the table.

1025
01:16:12,280 --> 01:16:17,030
And like I’ve said 100 times by now, the
Ori games are definitely quality games, and

1026
01:16:17,030 --> 01:16:22,219
totally worth picking up if you enjoy platformers
or Metroidvanias. To simplify Will of the

1027
01:16:22,219 --> 01:16:26,139
Wisps down to just being “Ori but more like
Hollow Knight” you’re underselling what

1028
01:16:26,139 --> 01:16:30,909
it is that makes both Ori and Hollow Knight
such amazing and fun experiences. The last

1029
01:16:30,909 --> 01:16:34,739
thing I want from this video is to start some
stupid flamewar between the Hollow Knight

1030
01:16:34,739 --> 01:16:39,869
and Ori fandoms over which games are better.
They’re all great games.

1031
01:16:39,869 --> 01:16:45,369
I first played Hollow Knight back in April
2017. In those days, the Hollow Knight community

1032
01:16:45,369 --> 01:16:50,889
was small, and it felt like this undiscovered
gem. I only heard about it because videogamedunkey

1033
01:16:50,889 --> 01:16:56,050
recommended it at the end of his video shitting
all over Yooka-Laylee. And guess how he promoted

1034
01:16:56,050 --> 01:16:58,889
it? By comparing it to other video games.

1035
01:16:58,889 --> 01:17:04,579
Bam! Hollow Knight. It’s like “cute Castlevania”
with some nods to Dark Souls and you can do

1036
01:17:04,579 --> 01:17:05,690
the DuckTales hop.

1037
01:17:05,690 --> 01:17:10,329
But now, Hollow Knight and its fandom loom
large over the Metroidvania genre, with its

1038
01:17:10,329 --> 01:17:15,579
sequel, Hollow Knight Silksong being the third
highest wishlisted game currently on Steam.

1039
01:17:15,579 --> 01:17:20,209
With such a successful title and large fanbase,
I don’t think the comparisons of other games

1040
01:17:20,209 --> 01:17:24,389
to Hollow Knight will be ending soon. It’s
certainly possible that Hollow Knight will

1041
01:17:24,389 --> 01:17:28,800
become like Dark Souls in that people will
start comparing it to any and every game that

1042
01:17:28,800 --> 01:17:31,019
looks even slightly similar.

1043
01:17:31,019 --> 01:17:35,469
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though.
I think the comparisons of Hollow Knight to

1044
01:17:35,469 --> 01:17:40,519
Dark Souls probably helped convince people
to pick it up. And like I said earlier, that’s

1045
01:17:40,519 --> 01:17:45,219
just how people describe new games to one
another. But I hope that comparisons to Hollow

1046
01:17:45,219 --> 01:17:50,059
knight aren’t done just to put games down
or insult them. Team Cherry is clearly okay

1047
01:17:50,059 --> 01:17:52,489
with games taking inspiration from them.

1048
01:17:52,489 --> 01:17:57,809
Look, this game looks cool. We don’t mind
if people look at Hollow Knight and go “I

1049
01:17:57,809 --> 01:17:58,920
want to do that too”.

1050
01:17:58,920 --> 01:18:02,309
Just like how Team Cherry took a lot of their
ideas from other games.

1051
01:18:02,309 --> 01:18:07,880
Zelda II, Metroid, Castlevania, Faxanadu,
Bloodborne, maybe a bit of Dark Souls in there

1052
01:18:07,880 --> 01:18:14,729
as well, Megaman X, Megaman Zero as well,
Pac-Man 2 The New Adventure

1053
01:18:14,729 --> 01:18:20,750
According to their website, Moon Studios “prides
itself on an excessive 'iterative polish'

1054
01:18:20,750 --> 01:18:25,810
process”. And that’s how great games get
made, through iteration and polish. Whether

1055
01:18:25,810 --> 01:18:29,809
that be through popularizing an entire genre
through the clever use of disparate mechanics

1056
01:18:29,809 --> 01:18:34,019
[Minecraft]. Or by combining and executing
on established mechanics to an insanely high

1057
01:18:34,019 --> 01:18:38,869
degree of polish [Hollow Knight]. Or by transferring
ideas from one genre into another to create

1058
01:18:38,869 --> 01:18:41,002
something fresh and unique[Ori and the Blind
Forest].

1059
01:18:41,002 --> 01:18:44,869
And we as a community should try our best
to be supportive of developers taking inspiration

1060
01:18:44,869 --> 01:18:49,789
from great games and finding new ways to build
upon those ideas. Getting defensive about

1061
01:18:49,789 --> 01:18:55,039
developers taking mechanics or art styles
from other games isn’t a great idea, especially

1062
01:18:55,039 --> 01:18:59,239
since it’s really easy to falsely attribute
where a specific idea came from. That’s

1063
01:18:59,239 --> 01:19:03,199
not to say that some developers aren’t just
trying to cash in on the success of another

1064
01:19:03,199 --> 01:19:09,519
game, but as long as the final product is
something of quality and worth playing, I’m

1065
01:19:09,519 --> 01:19:11,909
not sure the other factors matter all that
much.

1066
01:19:11,909 --> 01:19:16,369
I’m excited to see how the Metroidvania
genre evolves, especially in the wake of such

1067
01:19:16,369 --> 01:19:21,269
amazing games as Hollow Knight and Will of
the Wisps. As the barriers to entry for aspiring

1068
01:19:21,269 --> 01:19:26,479
game developers continue to drop, and the
genre gets more and more amazing titles, who

1069
01:19:26,479 --> 01:19:30,790
knows what Metroidvanias will look like in
a few years. Maybe by then we’ll have come

1070
01:19:30,790 --> 01:19:34,639
up with a better name for them. Eh, probably
not.