Ori developer Moon Studios head warns it may have to shut down following review bombing

The co-founder and CEO of the studio behind the Ori games says it may have to close down due to its latest game being “review bombed”.

Moon Studios released action RPG No Rest for the Wicked in early access in April 2024 and currently has a ‘Mostly Positive’ rating on Steam, with 74% of the nearly 35,000 user reviews marked as positive.

Despite this, Moon Studios CEO Thomas Mahler took to Discord (as spotted by a NeoGAF user) to tell players that the game has been “review bombed” and putting the company’s future at risk.

Mahler told fans of No Rest for the Wicked that if they haven’t left a positive review for the game yet they should because the studio’s business is “dependent on it”.

“I think people think I’m joking when I’m asking for positive reviews cause in peoples minds there’s always some big publisher in the background who’ll cover costs,” Mahler wrote.

“Folks, if you’re writing here and are enjoying Wicked and are excited for future updates, but haven’t left a positive review, it’s entirely possible that we won’t be around in a couple of months to do anything anymore simply because we got review bombed which leads to people not buying the game. Which means we’re not making any money and will have to shut down.

“I wouldn’t ask if our business wouldn’t be dependent on it. I also never write reviews on anything, but if you want to see us actually finish Wicked, it’s detrimental [sic] that we get that review score back up.”

Many of the game’s negative reviews on Steam appear to be focused on its difficulty, its combat, the lack of a multiplayer feature previously promised, the need to craft healing items and the game’s use of timers to make players wait for town upgrades to be completed.

Mahler’s request appears to have been acknowledged by some, because the game has received numerous positive reviews in the past day or two, though there are also a handful of negative reviews stating that they’ve been written purely because the developer asked for positive ones.

Moon Studios announced in March that it was now a “fully independent” studio, after securing the publishing rights to its game No Rest for the Wicked from Take-Two.

The early access release for No Rest for the Wicked – Moon’s third game after Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps – was published by Private Division, the Take-Two label specialising in publishing games from smaller developers.

When Take-Two sold Private Division in November 2024, the buyer also purchased almost all of Private Divisions existing and unreleased games, with the main exception being No Rest for the Wicked, which Take-Two said wasn’t part of the deal because it wanted to “continue to support” it.

In its March announcement, however, Moon Studios said it was “now fully independent”, stating: “We have secured the publishing rights for No Rest for the Wicked, allowing us to execute our vision without restrictions.”