Ori and the Will of the Wisps launched to unanimous acclaim back in March, and recently received a Nintendo Switch port introducing it to a variety of new players. We recently sat down with Moon Studios in order to chat all things Ori, and eventually wound up discussing the possibility of seeing Ori in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Fall Guys — as it turns out, Moon is definitely interested.
In our recently published Ori interview, Moon Studios lead artist Daniel van Leeuwen clarified that there’s already an Ori crossover in Rivals of Aether. However, lots of characters have more than one crossover under their belt — and Ori would be a pretty perfect fit for both Smash and Fall Guys.
“As far as crossovers, Daniel and I aren’t really involved in that aspect of things,” art director Jeremy Gritton tells me. “[But] I think it’s super cool when I see something like that happen. Ori getting put into Rivals was a really cool thing to see. I think some people were wondering if Ori might end up in Smash one day — we don’t know, we’re not involved in that kind of stuff, but crossovers are a really cool thing in general for games.
“I think [Ori] would translate really well to a fighting game, especially with all of the combat improvements and evolutions that were made for Will of the Wisps. It’s so much more combat-focused, there are so many moves and so much mobility. I could totally see it being a blast to play in that context.”
According to van Leeuwen, Moon Studios is “definitely up for it.” And in Gritton’s eyes, Moon would probably be up for a Fall Guys crossover, too.
As it happens, I sat down with Moon Studios co-founder Gennadiy Korol the day after speaking to the art team, and thought it was worth posing the question to him as well.
“You should tweet Phil Spencer about this,” Korol told me, referring to the possibility of Ori appearing in Smash. “I think he’ll appreciate that you’d be excited about that prospect. I think we would love something like that.
“I think it could work brilliantly. It’s just something Microsoft has to work out with Nintendo, we can’t make it happen by ourselves. There’s already a few Microsoft Smash characters in there, so maybe they’ll want that at some point.” Korol went on to say that if Microsoft tells him and the team at Moon that Ori appearing in Smash is possible, Moon will “definitely make it look awesome.”
As for Fall Guys…
“Oh yeah,” Korol tells me. “I don’t think we have thought about this but now that you say it that’s quite an interesting idea. I think we should consider it.” He explains that Moon is delighted to see how recognizable and revered Ori has become over the years — to me, those are two of the most important qualities to any potential crossover.
“I think it’s a great idea,” Korol adds. “With video game making you have so little time to actually sit down and play games, so I haven’t tried Fall Guys myself. But I have seen a lot of funny things. It’s something I’ll definitely bring up. I hadn’t thought about it, but now that you say it, maybe it makes sense. We’ll see what happens.”
Korol also offered some parting advice for anyone interested in seeing Ori in Smash or Fall Guys:
“If we want to see Ori in Smash, XboxP3 on Twitter. Tweet at Phil and the game and just suggest it.”
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