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One look at the trailer for Microsoft's upcoming Metroidvania adventure Ori and the Blind Forest and it's easy to be blown away by its Studio Ghibli inspired visuals. It's also just as easy to be a little dubious, thinking it's a knee-jerk reaction to the Redmond giant's less than stellar reputation with indie developers after Sony made such a fuss about them last year. "We can do pretty, quirky indie games too!" it seemed to say. It may surprise you to learn that Ori has actually been in development for four years at Moon Studios, while Microsoft picked it up three years ago. Ori's glorious aesthetic is certainly striking, but it's not the reason Microsoft Studios signed it back in the day. In fact, the graphics were nothing but bare-bones placeholder art at the time. So what sold it to the Redmond-based giant, you ask? Simple: the controls.
At a private media briefing at E3 this year, publishing producer at Microsoft Dan Smith raves about Ori's level of precision when it comes to its movements. "It just felt so superb!" the producer tells me when I ask how this publishing deal went down. "You'll notice that hardly any platforms in the game are flat and as you traverse across these terrains you'll see Ori change and shift along with it."
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