After negative Steam reviews, Ori developer shares surprising message on its future

Moon Studios may not be a household name when it comes to video game developers, but the indie studio has made two award-winning games: Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Both games were heavily promoted for the Xbox One and eventually made their way to the Nintendo Switch.

Last year, Moon Studios did an early access release for its third game, No Rest for the Wicked. The new game was a departure from the platformer gameplay found in Ori, with its action-roleplaying gameplay that was a mix of FromSoftware's Souls franchise and Blizzard's Diablo. Being a game in early access, those interested in playing the game can pay full price to gain access to the early build of the game as the developer works on it.

The goal of putting a game out for early access is to have gamers help fund the development before the title has a full launch. It appears, however, that Moon Studios is having some issues that could prove to be detrimental to the future of the studio.

The issues began with the release of The Breach content update for No Rest for the Wicked on May 1. This update was going to be a large one for the game that included new content, quality of life (QoL) changes, additional quests, and more.

This new update, however, didn't win over the current user base of gamers who paid for early access. In fact, it led to a series of negative reviews on Steam.

The negative reviews since the update offer a wide range of issues with the game from players who say they've played the game for an extensive amount of time. Some of the problems include an increase in difficulty, QoL changes that didn't help, and a lot of complaints about the game simply not being fun anymore.

Over the course of a year since the game has been available for early access, the largest number of negative reviews have stemmed from the May 1 patch, with the second time period being right after the initial release of the game into early access.

On May 10, Moon Studios' CEO and creative director, Thomas Mahler, posted on the game's Discord and left an ominous message about the future of the studio, as first reported by Windows Central.

"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," he wrote.

"Review bombing" is typically an organized, malicious campaign to harm a video game, movie, or even a place of business by leaving negative reviews. Usually, it's a reaction to a company's decision that could be directly related to whatever is getting reviewed or something else related. Review bombing is common in video games, with some instances involving how a game ended, like with Mass Effect 3, or simply for a game being available in the Epic Game Store, such as in the case with Borderlands 3.

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Mahler's Discord comments spread across the internet as the developer is still thought of fondly by many gamers. However, Mahler himself disputed that his company actually has any financial issues.

"And no, we’re not in immediate financial danger—but from time to time, I think I’m allowed to speak up about issues within our industry I personally find unbecoming," he wrote on X.

He went on to say he has no issue telling active players who loved the game to leave a positive review. He claimed some negative reviews for No Rest for the Wicked were made by people who bought the game, didn't play it, left the review, and then requested a refund from Steam. He says if that is allowed, it should also be allowed for a developer to ask players to share their real experiences about the game.

According to the game's Steam page, there has been a spike in positive reviews since he made his plea on Discord.

Mahler did say not all negative reviews of the game were part of a review bombing campaign, and that some offered important feedback that the studio is looking to address. He did state, however, that there are some bad actors who he claims are taking some past statements of his as reason to conduct a review bombing campaign.