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Ori and the Will of the Wisps is a massive game. So big, in fact, that the developers have been entertaining themselves by slotting the map of the original game into the new title and marvelling at how many places it'll fit.

"A lot of people completed Blind Forest in roughly eight hours, and thought that it was a positive experience," explains Daniel Smith, senior producer at Xbox Games Studios, who has been attached to the Ori projects since before the first title launched.

"But our community told us that there wasn’t a lot of draw to come back in once they'd completed the title. They just wanted more. So we took that to heart – this game is three times the size, and scope, and scale of Blind Forest."

The most noticeable aspect of this upgrade is the size: from the off, seeing your first objective appear way up in the murky blackness of an unexplored map, you know this game is massive.

"It’s absolutely enormous,' laughs Smith. "We’ve had a lot of fun actually taking the Blind Forest map and moving it around in the Unity Editor, fitting it in small portions of the world of Will of the Wisps."

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If you think that sounds too much for a Metroidvania, we can happily report that after three more hours hands-on with the game, Every second of Ori and the Will of the Wisps remains as charming and addictive as the first game.

This is a triple-A Metroidvania experience, and it shows in every pore of the game.

Whether that's in the improved graphics and intractability of everything on-screen, or in the deeper and more responsive way your main character responds to your inputs, you can see how Moon Studios has scaled this game up and made a true, honest-to-God sequel.

The 'scope' Smith talks about for Will of the Wisps' upscaling refers to the way in which the developers have altered the formula by giving players more choice in how they set up Ori mechanically.

The game now has a system similar to Hollow Knight's Charms. Called Shards, these discoverable and purchasable items can be equipped to Ori to enhance certain abilities.

Maybe you'll take more damage but deal 25% more as a trade-off, maybe you'll be able to equip a shard that makes your wayfinding a little bit easier – the choice is yours.

What is Ori and the Will of the Wisps? Developer - Moon Studios

- Moon Studios Release date - 11 February 2020

- 11 February 2020 Format - Xbox One and PC From the creators of Ori and the Blind Forest - the acclaimed adventure game with more than 50 awards and nominations - comes the highly-anticipated sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Embark on an all-new adventure in a vast and exotic world where you’ll encounter towering enemies and challenging puzzles on your quest to unravel Ori’s true destiny.

"I say 'scope' because of how deep the character progression goes this time, and the level of customisation you have when it comes to the shards.

"It’s much more Zelda-like, than anything else, this time around," nods Smith.

It makes sense as a reference, because Ori also has access to various weapons and offensive skills this time around too (we got a sword and a bow in our first few hours) and that grants players more flexibility in tackling the bosses and enemies in the game.

"In Blind Forest, you had a very linear skill tree – if you wanted something five ticks up, you had to invest in [the first four abilities in that tree]. At the rate at which you find the Shards in Will of the Wisps, you can equip them, and they play in nicely with how we’ve made the game more customisable, from a difficulty perspective."

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In every direction it's reaching out in Ori and the Will of the Wisps is deeper, better, more rounded as a game.

The game – which was announced back at E3 2017 – has been in development a long time, but from playing the game from the very start, it's clear that every second of development time has been worthwhile.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps has the potential to be not just one of the jewels in Microsoft's ever-growing line-up of first-party exclusives, but one of the best Metroidvania games of the generation.

Moon Studios spearheaded the new renaissance of Metroidvania games back in 2015 and now it's back to prove the genre still has plenty more to give.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps launches on March 11, 2020 for Xbox One.