Ori director says Microsoft thought the beloved Metroidvania was too hard, but he's "on the Miyazaki side" and believes "you have to overcome challenge"

Ori director and Moon Studios co-founder Thomas Mahler says Microsoft originally told him the beloved Metroidvania platforming series was too hard for a general audience, but Mahler insisted that the difficulty stay the same, believing the level of challenge was necessary for what he was trying to achieve.

Appearing on the Destin podcast (timestamped here), Mahler explained his game design philosophy, comparing it to Nintendo and FromSoftware's Hidetaka Miyazaki.

"But I'm on the Miyazaki side on this. That has to be really carefully tuned so that – there's this thing psychologically where you have to overcome challenge. You always have to have these moments were we present you with something and you feel like you can't do it, but then we get you to actually do it, and that is that moment of like, 'oh my god.'"

Ori and the Blind Forest and its sequel, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, are generally considered to be pretty tough games to get through, but in the context of Metroidvanias, they're middle of the pack in terms of difficulty. You'll certainly die many times playing them, especially during some notorious chase-style sequences, but it's all in the service of perfecting the precise timing needed to progress. Git gud, basically.